


The Future Is Brighter Than Any Flashback

by scatteredmoonlight



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drama, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Starfleet Academy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:00:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24891988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scatteredmoonlight/pseuds/scatteredmoonlight
Summary: Life continues in a universe without Vulcan, but Spock remains locked in a timeless path. Everything is as it should be, yet nothing is as it ought to be. Then Kirk walks back into his life and sends Spock off his axis. Academy fic, set after the 2009 film.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock
Comments: 33
Kudos: 183
Collections: T’hy’la Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is written for the T’hy’la Bang 2020. My artist partner is shyravenns (tumblr), and [she has created really beautiful art for the big bang](https://shyravenns.tumblr.com/post/621845355217272832/my-pieces-for-thylabang-and-my-partner). Please give her artwork lots of love because omg I'm crying it's so beautiful!!!!! :O There’s some stuff from Discovery in here, just the fact that Michael exists in the Kelvin timeline and she appears in the fic, but there’s no spoilers for the show. Thanks so much to my betas for all your help editing this mammoth of a fic!! Any mistakes are my own.
> 
> Title from [January White by Sleeping At Last](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X76Rx7vvkKk)
> 
> _This year, we're starting over again_  
>  _Letter openers in hand,_  
>  _A chance to take a chance_  
>  _I swear, I understand that the past will be the past,_  
>  _And nothing changes that,_  
>  _But the future is brighter than any flashback_

Two months passed since the Narada incident, and Spock could not remember the sound of his mother’s voice.

It struck him at dinner with Nyota in the cafeteria. The room was packed with several students endlessly chattering about the important and nonsensical, and Nyota’s voice had difficulty carrying over the ruckus. Spock leaned forward to accommodate this inconvenience, only it proved insufficient. He saw her lips move, gleaned the barest traces of words, and fought to discern any actual speech. He tried to imagine Nyota’s voice as louder than it was, but his internal voice replaced hers. It occurred to him that given the absence of her voice, he had difficulty recollecting it. 

Nyota so near, yet so out of reach, brought forth the visual of his mother upon the cliff. He saw her mouth opening, no sound coming out — he didn’t hear her last words, and he never heard her speak again. 

Nyota rose from the table and walked around to sit down at the seat beside him. Into the shell of his ear, she said, loud and clear, “Are you done? Do you want to get out of here?” 

He nodded. 

They left to walk around the campus. The cold nipped at him. He longed for a coat, but it was against regulation to wear anything thicker than his uniform. Unfortunately, it was summer in San Francisco, and his uniform reflected that. He recalled a quote from Mark Twain: _The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco._ Indeed. He fought against the urge to clench his hands into fists, as well as the involuntary impulse for his teeth to clatter. 

They strolled in silence until Nyota’s dormitory emerged. Spock halted and stared at it, not liking the sight. He hated when their evenings ended. They were so few and far between now that she was no longer his teaching assistant. 

“Hey. Hey, Spock.” 

Cool hands whispered across his cheeks, fingers twining behind his neck. He couldn’t meet her eye, instead looking across her shoulder to the man made gardens surrounding her building. Someone walked past them. Spock watched their fleeting footsteps hollowly. 

“You seemed distant tonight,” said Nyota. “Is everything okay?” 

Spock digested her words. “I enjoyed our time together.” 

“We still haven’t talked about everything that happened.” Her fingers fidgeted. “I’m here for you.” 

Two-point-six-five months had passed since the destruction of Vulcan and the genocide of its people, and Spock had yet to breathe a word of it to Nyota. She always inferred, correctly so, but Spock did not trust himself to not become emotionally compromised. The knowledge of her openness had been a great comfort, even if it was seldom utilized. As the humans proclaimed, she was his “rock.” Only they rarely met in private, their schedules too conflicting, and this semester neither had private accommodations. He shared a room with a third year student, not preferable but unsurprising as he was a graduate student, not only an instructor, finishing his degree alongside teaching. He had few classes as a student now, not feeling much like the student. The experiences of his roommate, at times, felt utterly alien to him. Life, in general, had begun to acquire a saccharine glow to it. 

He had to respond. He didn't know what to say. So instead he kissed her. 

Nyota's hand teased the hairs at the nape of his neck. He longed to settle his fingers over her psi-points and possibly linger there — but Nyota never liked melding. They tried it once, but the experience of another in her mind, reading her thoughts as they sprung without her conscious will, disturbed her. Spock did not resent this; Nyota was human and telepathy an experience beyond her biology. Only — Spock had enjoyed it. Being joined in consciousness had been a unique pleasure, and in that moment, Spock felt deeply Vulcan, an experience he encountered many times on Earth in a galaxy without Vulcan. Social faux pas remained a common occurrence, and the weather was less than preferable, but the meld had been different — pleasant, comfortable, addictive. In the quiet moment after the meld had ended, he glowed with residual warmth. But they’d meld only once, never to happen again, and that left him cold, wanting. 

He sucked in an involuntary breath, jarring his own thoughts, and pulled away from their kiss. “I must grade exams,” he said. He, in fact, did have such exams. “I will send a message when I am next available.” 

Nyota brushed her lips across his — he listened for footsteps even as his senses sang from her touch. “Goodnight, Spock.” 

* 

He awakened before his alarm clock, as he was prone to do, meditated, showered, partook in a small breakfast, and set out for work ahead of schedule. 

Rain had fallen overnight, puddles in the concave sidewalk, and Spock longed for the luxury of his classroom and the office, where he could set the temperature. His roommate Rob, as a human, did not tolerate the settings he preferred, and given the general ease of warming up in contrast to cooling down, Spock acquiesced from pressing the issue of central heating and instead slept with several blankets and flannel pajamas. At times it was as cold in his dorm as outside, and this fact hastened his stride to work. 

He arrived early and headed to his computer to begin amendments to the program that replaced the Kobayashi Maru. Instead of fear, this program targeted a calm logic in the face of a sudden, hostile adversary in deep space, communications cut off from Starfleet. He was immersed in his work by the time his colleagues arrived. He engaged in the culturally appropriate pleasantries, but otherwise did not leave his work. Chatter surrounded him that he did not join, anecdotes about his colleagues’ lives. Spock had no such stories to share, thus he did not arise from his desk to join in conversation. 

“I discovered a new coffee shop a few blocks away, _Spinner’s Gold_. Have you heard of it?” 

“No! Is it any good?” 

“The bagels. Oh my god, the bagels. Matt tried their espresso because he’s a coffee nut and they have single origins.” 

“Whoa.” 

Spock had witnessed the phenomenon known as bagels but had not eaten it himself. Caffeine rose his anxiety levels by 7.6%, and so he did not drink coffee. His colleagues continued to discuss irrelevant life experiences, dispersing only once their supervisor arrived. 

* 

It hadn’t occurred to him until late in the night that he never sent a textual transmission to Nyota. 

He lied awake, unable to sleep. His feet were freezing because of the window he hadn’t noticed Rob opened. He spent half an hour debating whether or not he ought to get out of bed to fetch woolen socks, since the socks would trigger a dilation of blood vessels in his warmed feet, only this involved exposing his entire body to the cold. As he contemplated the issue with rising irritation, a thought burst to mind that he’d forgotten entirely about contacting Nyota. It had been over 24 hours. 

His PADD rested on his chest of drawers. 

He ought to message her. 

Given the insomnia and the neglect of his relationship, there was little logic in staying in bed. Spock suffered the cold to fulfill his duty. 

* 

Nyota’s schedule grew hectic in the advent of midterm exams. In her absence, his days were spent largely in researching the replacement for the Kobayashi Maru and spending as little time in his dorm room or outside as possible. Spock would say he had forgotten the sight of the sun, only San Francisco’s fog was relentless. Occasionally he checked for a transmission from her, but he typically went days without, forgetting that there was even a need to remember to communicate with her. Currently, they met once over the weekend and on average went 4.6 days without a transmission, which were often short sentences scheduling a date. When they met in person, Nyota talked and Spock listened. She made it clear early on that on the rare days they spent together, she did not want to discuss work or studies, but their common interests. Since Spock rarely indulged in an interest these days besides meditation, a hobby Nyota did not share, he did not know what to discuss. 

On a Tuesday afternoon, a thought struck Spock to check his PADD. It had been 5.2 days since their last transmission. Spock had sent word that one of his research projects had ended, clearing up his evenings over both days on the weekend. 

Nyota had replied just today: _My roommate’s going out of town this weekend. Do you want to spend the night?_

Anticipation licked at him. Nyota would raise the heating for him. He accepted instantly. 

They had gone 2.71 months without sexual intercourse. Spock made sure to shower and change clothes before walking to her dormitory, his hair a crisp line and his face smelling fine with the scent of aftershave. He rang the bell for Nyota’s room and she buzzed him in. His boots echoed along the tiled corridors, the elevator fast to arrive and slow to bring him to her floor. 

Her door was ajar when he arrived. He pitched it open, noting the pleasant warmth burning his cheeks, and bellowed out, “Nyota? I am here.” Spock knelt down and removed his boots, setting them beside the row of shoes by the door. 

“Spock!” She slid out onto the tiled entrance on socked feet, wearing a loose fitted gown and her long hair loose. She dashed off and kissed him, grabbing his hand and tugging him inside, closing the door behind him. “I was just fighting with the replicator to make us something other than macaroni with marinara sauce. My roomie’s an engineer and had the bright idea to reprogram it before she left.” 

Nyota never managed to fix the replicator, and they settled on her bed with a PADD propped up with a movie, bowls of pasta in their laps. Spock had never tasted marinara or macaroni, but told Nyota no such thing. At her first bite, he noticed how her nose scrunched up in the way it did when she tried to hide her delight. Perhaps the replicator’s error had not been as unwelcome as she made it out to be. Spock tasted his food with trepidation nevertheless. 

A scene played out in a tense, dramatic situation on screen, and Spock watched pensively as he took his first bite. Only as soon as the sauce grazed his tongue, Spock forgot entirely about the movie. 

It was tomato, it was basil, it was garlic — 

It was his mother harvesting herbs from their garden, her prized garden that Sarek always believed to be an illogical hobby, as the water necessary to grow the plants were costly compared the ease of replicators. Spock was too young to help cut the tomatoes, that task falling onto his older sister Michael, but he stood on a stool to wash the tomatoes and herbs beside his mother. He passed her sticks and leaves, and she ran them under the water, humming. 

“What are we cooking, mother?” he’d asked. It was an Earth food, one that he intuited that Michael knew the name of, and it embarrassed him that she knew more about their mother’s home world than he did. All of this came naturally to her, whereas every experience was a revelation to him. 

His mother kissed the top of his head, smiling. “It’s a surprise.” 

No, Spock now realized, it was marinara. 

He wanted to swallow the pasta whole and rid himself of the memories of his mother, but digestion first began in the mouth. It was illogical not to chew. 

He finished half of his bowl before setting it on the bedside table beside Nyota’s. 

Nyota curled up next to him, hugging his chest. A minute passed into the movie, then she peered up at him. 

“Everything all right? You’re tense.” 

Spock still tasted the memory of marinara on his tongue. “I am fine.” 

She rubbed a hand over his chest. “Is it about work?” 

It seemed the issue would not be set aside. “No.” 

“Classes?” 

“No.” 

“It’s personal in nature, isn’t it?” 

He closed his eyes, wanting to avoid this conversation altogether. He didn’t want to discuss his mother. He didn’t want to discuss Vulcan. He wanted life to commence as it had, and for Nyota to accept that. He did not know how to make her understand his position, but realized that he did not need to. The quickest way to avoid a conversation was to change it, preferably without words. Spock shifted onto his side, fitting his hand over her cheek — impressions of _concern, apprehension, love_ seeping from their skin to skin contact — and ignored these feelings to kiss her. 

Soon enough they kissed long enough that Nyota sat on his hips, her body shielding his view of the PADD, and the conversation had been successfully ended. 

Thoughts of his mother returned, unbidden. He remembered the vision of her smile, her head conservatively tilted when a guffaw threatened to break through, her laughter void of sound. He remembered walking through gardens with his parents, his mother halting to admire a flower, taking out her PADD to capture a photo, his father intoning, “Illogical,” which at the time Spock interpreted as sincere, but now he knew to be a declaration of love. 

Nyota tilted his chin to deepen the kiss. Spock sucked in a breath — in part because of her touch, in part because of the memories swirling in his head like ancient space dust. Absently, he recalled a time when he contemplated undergoing the ritual of kolinahr and wondered if not following through had been an error on his part. 

* 

His head hurt, insomnia plaguing him last night from open windows and Rob’s PADD playing into the night. He slept until his alarm clock jolted him awake, a noise Spock ignored initially as he was not used to hearing it. He showered. Only his bangs didn’t dry properly, and Spock required a second rinse in the shower to tame them. Rob had begun stealing Spock’s toothpaste, as he had run out, which he took not by rolling the end of the tube, but squeezing the middle. Spock lost 5.86 seconds rectifying the matter. 

As such, he ran behind schedule approximately fifteen minutes when accounting for drowsiness, redundancies, and avoiding Rob to the best of his ability in a 130 square foot dormitory, or else Spock might have initiated an altercation. 

He resisted the urge to stow his hands in pockets as he sped through campus to hastily arrive to work on time. It was autumn, not yet winter, his regulation black parka and knitted cowl gathering dust in his tiny closet. His fingers ached, numbed from cold, but gloves were not permitted with the uniform. He keyed into the building with a quivering hand, but soon the central heating hit him with a burst of hot air, cheeks stinging green and warm from the sudden onslaught. He bowed his head upon passing people in the corridors, and barely managed to shoulder his way into an elevator. 

“Hello, Mr. Spock,” said Darlene, a research assistant tasked with ascertaining the on-field accuracy of their educational program, upon his entry into the office. 

He hated arriving late. 

It meant he must engage in pleasantries for longer than preferable. 

Darlene stood by the coffee maker with Roger, the project manager and assistant to the professor assigned to overlook their project. He had a coffee in hand, which meant that if Spock were to aptly socialize, he too needed to drink coffee. 

Spock halted beside Darlene and inclined his head. “Ms. Lewis. Mr. Hogart.” 

He slipped past them to start a decaf coffee that the machine spat out in a tiny plastic cup. He could not fathom why they did not use a replicator. 

He sipped the coffee and toasted them. “If you will excuse me.” 

And then he left. 

Hushed silence remained behind him. He ignored it in favor of booting his computer and looking over his work on the project for a final time before it was administered to a program tester. The office was empty save for the three of them, so he heard it with ease when Roger whispered to Darlene, “Half-Vulcan, half-android. Yes or no?” 

Darlene giggled. “Yes.” 

Spock frowned. He’d misstepped. 

After his shift, Spock went to the library. 

Spock examined the spines of books on the shelves with a critical eye for critical references on the topic of the Kobayashi Maru’s replacement. His prior misstep necessitated that he provided an optimal performance in order to prevent any lacking on his part professionally. 

He debated between a book on the top shelf when two harsh voices cut through from the parallel aisle. 

“You’re a damn fool.” 

“But what if — ” 

“Braindead, dumb as rocks, infantile — ” 

“Why do you _always_ call me a child?” 

“Because you are one, that’s why.” 

They were oddly familiar, though he couldn’t quite place them, and elected to peer through the stacks of books to catch a glimpse of the speakers. His eyes widened fractionally. The voices belonged to none other than Cadets Leonard McCoy and James T. Kirk. 

He hadn’t seen them since the USS Enterprise had docked. 

“But — ” said Kirk, arms waving. 

An unimpressed look hardened McCoy’s face. 

Spock remembered his counterpart’s words, the message that convinced him to not seek out a role on New Vulcan but to remain with Starfleet. _Because you needed each other. I could not deprive you of the revelation of all that you could accomplish together, of a friendship that will define you both in ways you cannot yet realize._

Friendship was an emotional attachment, and therefore unnecessary. It did not involve the unique intimacy of sexual relationships, nor did it advance one’s safety net in life as did familial and professional relationships. “Deprive” implied a loss, an absence were Spock to stray from the path his counterpart deemed suitable, but in terms of captain and first officer, this made perfect sense. 

Yet it did not seem logical to disregard the wisdom of an elder that was also himself. 

In any case, he had no friendship with Cadet Kirk, and therefore he hadn’t approached him since they returned to Starfleet. During the first few days, he had entertained the possibility, but didn’t know how to “break the ice,” so to speak, after marooning him on Delta Vega, choking him to near death on the bridge, and garnering a tentative alliance solely in the face of imminent danger. It did not eclipse the notion of friendship, nor did it preclude a reasonable notion of acquaintanceship, and Spock’s busy schedule barely accommodated time with Nyota. Indeed, his counterpart’s words had seemed pivotal enough at the time to reject New Vulcan, yet as time passed, they proved a fleeting, ephemeral token of advice. 

But he could approach Kirk now. Weight the merits of his counterpart’s words with empirical evidence. Perhaps under the lie of needing a book in Kirk’s aisle. He contemplated the logistics of such a falsehood. 

“I dunno, Bones, it seems a bit — hey!” 

McCoy had smacked his arm. “This is about a girl, isn’t it?” 

Kirk’s countenance dropped with a look of utter defeat, eyebrows falling at the corners and mouth twisting in a frown. It was such an utterly pathetic combination with a slap that couldn’t have hurt and an accusation that bared little credence. Spock couldn’t help the spark of amusement that ignited in him. But then a smirk cut across Kirk’s face, the mischievous look causing Spock’s heart to thump in his side and his gaze to sharpen, soaking in the evolving contours of Kirk’s face as it grew into something rather fetching. Spock found himself holding his breath, keeping himself quiet in anticipation of Kirk’s next move. 

“There _might_ be someone in the lab.” 

“Dammit, Jim. Lab partner, seriously?” 

“We studied together last night.” 

“‘Studied.’ Right. Sure you did.” 

“We did! ...At first.” 

“I’m not hearing this.” 

McCoy stepped away from Kirk, and Spock calculated a 64.98% likelihood that they would soon leave the aisle. At Kirk’s fluid steps and outstretched hands to grasp McCoy’s arm, he raised it to 89.03%. He must make his move now. 

Spock tucked his PADD under his arm, the list of books safely stowed away to peruse later on, and started for their aisle. Perhaps they could casually bump into one another. An excellent start to a life altering friendship. 

But on his third step, Spock halted, a spike of distress flooding him. 

What _would_ he say? 

McCoy and Kirk were engaging in a banter, fast paced and comical in nature. Spock’s humor tended to be accidental and the effect lost on him, presumably due the mistranslation of his thoughts to words, the logical efficiency lost on humans. How could Spock possibly contribute to a conversation organically? He would not encounter Kirk alone, but with McCoy, whose sharp tongue eluded Spock. 

Would they discuss the Narada, their only shared point of interest? Perhaps Kirk did not wish to see him, given their last interactions. 

Were Spock to possess a friendship that would “define [him] in ways [he] cannot yet realize,” then an excellent second first impression, given his less than savory previous attempt, was pivotal. 

The tip of McCoy’s black boot toed across the aisle, and Spock froze. Illogically, a thought occurred to him that if he did not move, attention would not be drawn to himself, and thus he would not be seen. McCoy paced across the aisle, never once seeing Spock, and Kirk was too busy defusing McCoy’s assumption about his romantic life to notice Spock either. 

Spock listened as their voices gradually grew quieter as they swept away from him, and the dull silence of the aisle in their wake was deafening. It felt like a burst of energy had been depleted from Spock’s personal reservoir. A hollow weight settled over his side, heart beat finally slowing back to normal, and he gazed at nothing for 3.5 seconds before resuming the task of selecting books. 

* 

Nyota sent a message: _Dinner this Friday in the cafeteria? I have space between lectures and studying._

Of course, Spock hadn’t seen it. 

* 

What, exactly, presumed a friendship that would define not only Spock, but Kirk as well? 

Friends communed. Talked. Shared life experiences, interests, and time. This assumed Spock would expend the necessary effort to allow Kirk into his circle, and Kirk would do the same. Obviously, Spock could achieve this as the interest had reawakened in him since the non-encounter in the library. But why would Kirk wish to achieve this? Spock had not made a worthwhile impression on him. 

Kirk was witty. Vulcans did not joke. Kirk flirted. Spock maintained a relationship to the best of his ability. Kirk enigmatically inspired the people around him. Spock ensured his work went above and beyond expectations to offset the inevitably of cultural misunderstandings. Kirk had friends. Spock had a roommate. 

Spock entertained the notion that in their brief time as captain and first officer that they possessed a certain chemistry that superseded the lack of a camaraderie Spock offered Kirk. Only they shared no academic interests as Kirk’s interests lied in command and Spock’s deep within sciences, and so his unique ability to provide a professional chemistry could not be utilized at the Academy. He had no recollection of Kirk introducing any of his hobbies, and despite the fact that Spock had none himself, he could not even pretend to share a common interest. 

The week passed in a blur of monotony until Friday. Spock woke in the night shivering, the window once again open, and tried to ignore the cold. His efforts proved insufficient. He arose from bed in order to change his flannel pants into sweats and procured a sweater to wear over his shirt. He settled back into bed, annoyance decreasing his ability to fall asleep, and woke up less rested than he ought to be. 

Vulcans could go weeks without sleep, yet they were not immune. Spock spent the day contemplating the logistics of having a coffee, perhaps at the coffee shop _Spinner’s Gold_ that his colleague had lauded, but the hours swept by in that familiar monotonous blur, and it would have been unreasonable to have any caffeine, the hour too late. 

He had a replicated dinner in the office before settling out in the brisk foggy evening, ears tinged white and nose insufferably runny. The further San Francisco left summer meant it sooner approached winter, and temperatures did not rise as the year progressed. 

The cold nipped his ears, but he didn’t want to go home. The hour was still early, which meant he’d have to socialize with his roommate. 

He passed by _Spinner’s Gold_. He stopped and stared at it from across the street, hesitating. He calculated the logistics of simply going in, possibly fabricating a story of eating one of the bagels and lending credence to the fable by providing an accurate visual description of the coffee shop. He calculated that the closeness it’d bring to his colleagues would raise efficiency by 2.8%. 

It was settled. He’d go in. 

A bell chimed as he entered, a short line at the register. The shop smelled of fresh coffee and toasted baked goods, not a replicator in sight. He settled in line, examining the menu and wondering if he ought to take a decaf latte. One of his colleagues “swore” by them. 

“Carla, I’ve missed you so much.” Spock forced himself not to look, but his skin prickled with anticipation. _Kirk._ “Do you know that? I’ve missed you and I’ve missed your bagels.” 

A woman chuckled. “Really.” 

“Really. I missed how you spread the cream cheese in that way that you do. I tried to replicate the thing in the mess, but no. Nothing quite like it.” 

“I’m guessing you’re ordering a bagel?” 

“And an americano, medium.” 

“Comin’ right up.” 

Should Spock approach him now? Would it be deemed “awkward,” given their lack of a proper acquaintanceship? Spock remembered the last time they encountered one another, and tentative to professional, at best, described it. Kirk was not privy to his conversation with his counterpart, and Spock wondered if he would feel the same gravity over the declaration of their friendship in an alternate universe that seemingly transcended the professional. 

What would he say, if he did approach Kirk? Spock had once assaulted Kirk on the bridge of the Enterprise. Perhaps Kirk wished to avoid him, justifiably. 

Of course, Kirk would wish to avoid him. Spock had given little in the way of camaraderie. 

Spock glanced across the shoulder of the person in front of him, noted that Kirk was still paying at the register, and promptly stepped out of place in line to leave the coffee shop. 

“Hey — that can’t be — _Spock?_ ” 

Spock froze, caught. He turned around, locking eyes with James T. Kirk. 

Kirk strode over to Spock.“How’ve you been? What — what brings you ‘round these parts?” 

Spock schooled his features. “I was drawn to the local cuisine.” 

Kirk smiled, a golden smile, that lit up his face. It mesmerized. “What are you up to these days?” 

“I am preparing the replacement for the Kobayashi Maru, a project currently without an official name. Launch will occur in three weeks.” 

“I guess I saw that coming.” 

“To what do you refer?” 

“I ruined your simulation.” 

“Ruining implies a destruction beyond repair, cadet.” 

“And creating a backdoor program circumventing the simulation’s narrative doesn’t imply that?” 

“Are you admitting to the charges?” 

“Say it. I ruined your test, Spock.” 

“As I said — ” 

“Ruined it so bad it’s been shelved.” 

“An electronically stored program cannot be ‘shelved,’ cadet.” 

“You really get a kick out of calling me cadet, don’t you?” 

Spock raised an eyebrow. “I assure you. My feet are firmly on the ground.” 

Kirk burst in laughter, eyes crinkling, and slapped his thigh, but as he did so, his fingertips brushed briefly over the back of Spock’s hand. Goosebumps rose in a wave as _delight, amusement, yearning_ flooded his senses through their direct contact. Tentatively, Spock raised a hand and settled it over Kirk’s shoulder in a feeble attempt to calm him, though his naked laughter grew so infectious that Spock felt a lightless fill him up. 

Spock wondered if he ought to lower his hand from Kirk’s shoulder, but it remained firmly planted. Removing it would raise the likelihood of ending the conversation by 14.06%, and now that Spock had the opportunity to build a rapport with Kirk, he was not inclined to end it prematurely. 

Kirk shook his head and settled back, away from Spock, his hand slipping away. He looked hesitant. “Why not go back to the stars? You were incredible in the Enterprise.” 

_Because you’re here._ The thought came quick, unbridled, with a raw tinge of desperation for this to be fact. He was emotional, illogical, drawing unfounded conclusions that six months’ time tarnished the plausibility of garnering a friendship with Kirk, and that he had not appropriately planned ahead for his future deeply troubled him. “I go where Starfleet places me,” he said. “I am needed at the Academy.” A falsehood, but Kirk needn’t know. Spock could have gone to New Vulcan or accepted a placement as science officer on a starship. Instead, he had chosen to remain on Earth. 

“I suppose, uh,” Kirk said, shifting on his feet, “that it doesn’t have anything to do with Uhura?” 

Spock waited for him to elaborate. When he did not, Spock said, “Explain.” 

“Well, you know. She’s your girlfriend.” 

“Irrelevant. I had been bonded for several years with my former fiance on Vulcan and myself on Earth.” Spock observed as Kirk blanched, never minding how much he had just revealed of his personal life. This was his first opportunity to begin a friendship with Kirk, and he needed to use his limited resources efficiently. Divulging in private matters was the line of least resistance. 

Kirk struggled for words. “Is she…?” 

“Deceased?” 

Kirk nodded. 

“She is very much so alive. Our bond is merely terminated.” 

“Great. That’s great.” 

A bell rang from the counter. “Bagel and americano for Jim!” 

Kirk glanced over his shoulder. “That’s me. I gotta grab my stuff and study for an exam on Monday. It was nice seeing you again, Spock.” 

Spock made to speak, only Kirk stepped away, sending a clear message. “Goodbye, Cadet Kirk.” 

“Right, uh. Bye.” 

Kirk left to retrieve his coffee and bagel from the counter, toasting Spock as he passed him by. The bell over the door rang at his departure. 

Spock turned around. He strained his eyes to see through the window, but there was no sign of Kirk. And to believe there could have been an opportunity to see him was illogical. 

An unease settled in Spock’s belly. His eyebrows furrowed, only he was dimly aware of it. He had forgotten to ask for contact information. He closed his eyes. _Kadiith._ What is, is. 

Unsettled, Spock reassessed his plans and opted for a tea. Perhaps the buzz of other conversations and light music in the coffee shop would drown out the confusion befuddling his thoughts. He’d arrive home during the hours Rob typically watched television. He would then meditate in peace, conversation with Rob unwelcome. 

His thoughts kept circulating around the encounter with Kirk. It was with absentmindedness that he found a table and sat down, his PADD flat on the table before him. He watched as steam billowed out from his tea, curling and spiraling into intricate designs before disappearing into nothingness. Spock wondered where the steam went, its form eluding him. 

He was alone with these thoughts when a chair in his table pulled out in front of him. At first, he thought it was someone coming to steal a chair, only then a woman sat down. He looked up. 

Nyota peered back at him, eyes inscrutable. Stunned, Spock wondered how long she’d been in the coffee shop — had he arrived first? Had she been there the entire time? The cafe was crowded, a distinct possibility that he had missed seeing her. 

She looked down at his tea, then back up to his eyes. “I’m surprised to see you here.” 

Spock didn’t know what to say. He did not reply. 

“I sent a message for us to get together tonight.” 

He considered this. “I have not checked our messages since Monday.” 

She frowned, and they steeped into silence. Dimly, he thought to touch her hand and sense her emotions, feeling suddenly so far away from her. 

He watched her, wondering what she was thinking, and he hadn’t realized how much he depended on her to be the one to do the talking until she wasn’t speaking at all. He pondered an avenue of potential conversation, only then her eyes lit up with emotion, and he leaned forward to welcome her. 

“I hadn’t checked my PADD for a few days before messaging you, either. I messaged you partly because I felt guilty. I felt guilty because I was ignoring you. Ignoring a man who obviously needs someone — ” Nyota cut herself off with a grimace. Spock felt a prickling on his neck, nervous all of a sudden. “I worry about you, Spock. You don’t talk to me. I can’t get you to talk to me. So much has happened over the last year, and we don’t talk anymore. But at the same time, we don’t _give_ ourselves the opportunity to talk. The other day, all my classes were miraculously canceled. I spent the day doing nothing at home, watching old television shows, and it didn’t hit me until days later, the day I messaged you, that it hadn’t occurred to me to spend that time with you.” She reached across the table and grasped his hand. He found he couldn’t meet her eyes, because now that he had context for those brown depths — _sorrow, compassion, regret_ — he didn’t want to look. “You deserve better than that Spock. You deserve to be someone’s priority. I think that’s why we don’t talk anymore. We’re not each other’s priorities.” 

A glass shattered deep within him, nicking him as he attempted to piece it back together again. “You are my rock,” he said, devoid of inflection. 

Nyota squeezed his hand. “I’ll always be your friend, Spock. I love you and that hasn’t changed. I’m here for you.” 

His fingers shifted beneath hers, and she pulled away. Cold seeped over his skin in the absence of her warmth. “You wish to terminate our relationship,” he said, though his voice hitched at the end. Questioning. He was too shocked to register the emotion leaking through. 

“I do.” Her fingers curled softly into her palm. “Some time apart, more than we’re used to… I think it’ll do us both some good.” 

A silence fell upon them, and Spock contemplated it. As it stretched, Nyota began to fill it. “I discovered a transmission in the lab today,” she said, the topic changed. Discussion ended. His rock was gone. He struggled to remember the last time he confided in her, and could not. “My professor cleared me to use it as evidence in my essay.” 

Spock didn’t reply, but he did listen to her. 

A few minutes passed with Nyota talking, but eventually she excused herself to return to whoever she was with tonight. It was too early to return to his dorm, so for lack of anything better to do, Spock switched on his PADD. His thoughts drifted through a fog that rivaled the skies. 

_I think that’s why we don’t talk anymore. We’re not each other’s priorities._

Spock stared at the screen, not touching it, and the sleep setting inevitably came on, plunging the screen to its dull, blank grey. 

His tea grew cold, untouched. 

* 

The glow from Rob’s PADD bounced off the white walls. It flickered and faded, then burst with chromatic rays as the scenes changed. Light chuckling sounded from their bed, just two strides away. 

Spock’s toes curled in his woolen socks. Hoodie drawn over his head, knees aching despite wearing sweatpants, he ran a times table in his head. _Four times four is sixteen. Five times five is twenty-five. Six times six is thirty-six._

His mother had taught him to do this. As his classmates liked to remind him, no matter how hard he tried, he still remained half-human. Emotions ran deep in Vulcans, but they also ran shallow in humans. His mother taught him that sometimes it was best to distract his mind, and timidly he’d asked if time tables would suffice as a reasonable enough distraction. 

_Seven times seven is forty-nine._ His eyes ached, as did his throat. He clutched the innermost layer of a duvet in his hands, balling them into fists. _Eight times eight is sixty-four._ _Nine times nine is eighty-one. Ten times ten in one hundred. Eleven times eleven is one hundred twenty-one._ His eyes were leaking, the moisture stinging the corners. Spock didn’t notice until the tears grew bothersome on the tip of his nose, but the room was so cold, he didn’t want to unfurl from the blankets and dry it. 

He remembered lying in bed as a boy similarly, his mother carding fingers through his hair and reading from _Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland._ This was before Michael joined their family. When it was only the two of them and his mother still read him books. He remembered the words falling from her lips: _If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?_

But he didn’t think the words in her lovely voice, the one he’d heard all his life. It was his internal voice. Try as he might, he couldn’t conjure her pitch, enunciation, cadence, or inflection. He didn’t remember her voice. He didn’t remember his mother’s voice. 


	2. Chapter 2

Nyota had never known about T’Pring. 

T’Pring had survived the destruction of Vulcan because of an affair off planet with Stonn, who Spock met on New Vulcan during the ceremony of breaking their bond. He seemed noble, considerate. Spock held no emotion toward T’Pring, both keeping shields firmly in place since their bond was set as young children, but he had trepidations about breaking the bond if Stonn hadn’t seemed to possess the kind of character that he had. 

The bond had been strong when Spock commenced a romantic relationship with Nyota. There hadn’t been an appropriate moment to mention the bond between the distress signal, Kirk’s disruptions aboard the Enterprise, and securing a plan of action against the threats to Earth. He supposed he could have informed her before he had left for New Vulcan. But she had correctly assumed that he went to meet with his family. Michael had attended the ceremony, and T’Pring, his then finance, was potential family. At the time, it seemed a private matter between his bonded and himself, and he did not know what he might have said had Nyota expressed a desire to bond with him. They rarely melded, as the presence of another mind in hers disturbed Nyota, and — though he acknowledged the irony — it felt unfaithful to T’Pring. 

T’Pring shared only two melds with Spock — one on the day of their bonding, and the second in order to unweave the intricate threads that joined their minds. 

She burned like the hot sands of Vulcan, quickening his blood as his ancient fever awakened at the telepathic touch of his bonded. Spock had felt less of a man, more of the purest Vulcan than he had ever been in his life. Her mind was fluid, emotive, confined to a logical framework that riveted Spock in its complexity. Her thoughts influenced his rationale long after, her reasonings sound and justifiable. The meld had taken place in mere seconds, and yet it lasted a lifetime. 

He had always respected Nyota’s wishes to not meld, so much that it had never occurred to him that melding was a possibility between them. Yet he fantasized about melding in sex, preferably during climax, and wondered if, perhaps, she might have liked it had they tried. 

Perhaps melding was the missing link. He could transfer emotions and anecdotes without breathing a word, conveying to her everything he felt, the words he’d never shared. 

Spock pondered this as he ate breakfast in bed, eyebrow raised at the soup in his lap. 

The bathroom door clicked open as Rob finished his shower. Jarred from his revere, Spock sipped his soup, not tasting it, and wondered, perhaps, if he should have told Nyota about T’Pring. 

* 

Summer’s residual warmth continued to disappear, the sun shining sporadically before it hid away to hibernate for the remaining months of the year. In November, the Academy permitted the use of winter uniforms, which consisted largely of the same materials except for the permittance of a jacket and scarf of choice, as long as it matched the same coloring as one’s respective uniform. As it was only October, Spock stared at the winter garments stowed away in his closet with wistful longing He braved the cold with a long sleeved shirt layered beneath his uniform, the frigid temperatures impossible to endure otherwise. 

This Friday marked the one month anniversary of his final conversation with Nyota since the termination of their relationship. He hadn’t realized their textual transmissions had stopped until the second week, and by the third he realized that he had taken on extra projects at work and graded his students’ assignment all ahead of schedule. He extended his office hours for tutoring and had become a mentor for one more student. This was not due to newly freed time, for Nyota and he rarely met, and the realization had gained a heightened clarity when he noticed the lack of adjustments necessary to accommodate his new post-termination schedule. 

What he did miss was the conversation. 

Nyota abhorred talking about their work and studies when they met, and Spock did not realize how much he valued this until his only relationships involved colleagues and students. At a certain point, requesting Rob to cease usage of his toothpaste had been a revelation and invigorated him for the entire day. He even engaged in small talk around the coffee maker at work, listening more so than talking himself. Curiously, these inane conversations among his peers increased efficiency by 9.5%. 

The positive influence of miscellaneous conversation even drove him to contemplate communicating with Sarek. Only as the months passed, his father stopped reaching out, and Spock could not discount the matter that his mother’s death had been the instigating factor in uniting them after years of silence. Now that a time had passed for a reasonable period of mourning, Sarek had little obligation to converse with his son. Spock contemplated communicating with Michael, but did not know what to say. In the end, considering his family proved a futile effort that only achieved distraction and an unsavory pulsation behind his right eye. 

Spock compromised with his need for socialization by staying home on Saturdays to breathe the same air as Rob. He largely spent the time in bed grading assignments and updating himself on galaxy wide news. At night, he nestled into his layers of duvets for brief mediation, closing his eyes and breathing in the scent of laundry detergent in lieu of incense. 

* 

Days blurred into a mantra of braving the cold, working, grading. Every four or so days his hand automatically reached for his PADD and opened his inbox to glimpse at his messages with Nyota in case she contacted him for a date — then he remembered that, of course, she wouldn’t be contacting him. A cold numbness clenched in his side as his heart and stomach reacted. Another four days passed and he consciously prevented himself from checking his messages, but an obsessive tendency developed whenever his mind went blank from thought, his hands working through motor memory. Shame overcame him every time, and regret. It pressed against his shoulders until nothing else mattered but that feeling, and he was so well reminded that not even his father spoke to him anymore. 

On the rare evening Rob abandoned their dorm to study in the library, Spock vowed to meditate on the obsessions that led him to pine for correspondence from Nyota. Lights dimmed, transitive music whispering, Spock assumed his place with cross legs on his bed, then — 

Then his PADD dinged with an incoming message. 

His eyes shot open, hands flinching from where they rested on his knees, palms facing up. With an urgency he refused to recognize, Spock snatched his PADD off his desk and rushed to read Nyota’s message. 

_Incoming video transmission: Michael Burnham._

Thought was instantly banished, mind blank. 

_She is in danger_ , he realized, the conclusion arising unbidden from a depth buried deep within him. He clutched the PADD as a sharp pang of fear incensed him. But of course, she was in no danger. Why would she send a deep space transmission for aide from someone not on her starship? Yet the fear overwhelmed his senses. Spock forced his demeanor to remain neutral and silenced his meditation music as he sat down at his desk and accepted her call. 

His sister materialized on the PADD and nothing could have prepared Spock for the shock of witnessing a member of his family alive and breathing. 

The reaction was illogical: Michael had not been on Vulcan during Nero’s attack. The _USS Discovery_ had not even diverted its course as it lurked too far into deep space; the ship could have traveled at warp factor 10 and never arrived at Vulcan in time to defend it against attack. In addition to her life having never been in harm’s way, they had seen each other since the Narada incident as the bond with T’Pring had been broken. Witnessing the life stolen from someone so close to his heart had altered his perception of the past and his relationship to it — incrementally, irrevocably — and so when T’Pau inquired as to whether he wished for a familiar witness to join him as the bond broke, he confirmed that he wished for his surviving relatives to attend, his father and sister. He did not _need_ to see either of them, but he wanted to. He wanted to see his father surviving the death of his bondmate. He wanted to ensure his sister had not succumbed to the dangers of deep space expeditions. He did not want to be alone as his bond was broken, leaving him vulnerable to a pon farr without a mate. 

He had felt the shock of seeing her then too — felt a visceral ache at the sight of her proper stance, the calm logic of her words, the familiarity of her. He’d seen her first from afar for the first time since joining Starfleet and did not know how to approach her. The pain of every hurt between them felt too deep to overcome. But he remembered the smell of Vulcan’s sands whisked up in the air as the planet caved in on itself, their mother’s wordless lips. It could have been Michael dead on the planet, if the Vulcan Expeditionary Group had rightfully accepted her admission and kept her studies on Vulcan. 

He forced away these feelings of shock and leveled his emotions until he looked at his sister and felt very little. He tilted his head. “Michael.” 

Her eyes softened yet otherwise no emotional displays marred her countenance — so wholly Vulcan. Spock hadn’t realized that humans did not tend to exhibit these mannerisms until he left for Earth. Watching her, an ache suddenly pressed against his throat, and Spock forced himself to merely return the welcome. He raised his hand to salute. 

She saluted too. “Hey, Spock.” 

“How is your mission?” 

“It’s…” She glanced away shortly and did the Vulcan approximation of shrug. “We’re studying the anomalies that led to the creation of red matter. Can’t say any more than that, but it’s fulfilling work.” 

Spock’s eyebrow darted up. 

“Has Starfleet informed you about your next posting?” asked Michael. 

“Negative.” 

They fell into silence after that, and Spock slipped into a mild meditation to prevent his thoughts from wandering. The quiet stretched on until an awkwardness smothered the space between them. Spock wondered if he ought to say something but had little to offer conversationally. 

Michael perked up. “How’s Nyota?” she asked, a smirk curling at her lip — she was teasing him, like always, a childish remnant of their childhood when they would react to one another’s romantic entanglement as if it were a supreme gossip. 

He chose his words carefully — because part of him still refused to admit it. “I presume she is well, though I cannot ascertain her wellbeing with certainty.” 

“You can’t — oh.” Again her eyes softened, no longer with welcome but now sympathy. And something else. Something he couldn’t interpret. He ached to touch her bareskin and sense her emotions, even though he never did that with Michael. They always spoke their thoughts. “You’re all alone out there.” 

He grew very still and overly conscious of his facial features, of the breath hitched in his lungs, his stomach chilled as if frozen. “ _Kadiith_.” 

Michael drew closer to the screen — illogically coming closer to him, he knew it. She was his family, his sister. She was coming closer, but could never touch him, the screen a falsehood of the true distance between them. 

“I miss her,” whispered Michael, so soft the words could barely make it to the microphone, but the second Spock registered the words, his heart rate spiked and stomach flipped. “I’m so angry at the man who took her from us.” 

His heart thudded and fluttered. He feared it might hop out of his body and leave him. Air was impossible to breathe. He remembered his rage on the bridge, his grief and uncontrolled feeling on full display before his colleagues and his father. “It is natural to feel anger toward those who bring us harm.” 

“My assignment, whenever —” She stiffened. “It’s hard to move on when I’m reminded almost every day. I dreamed that I boarded the Narada and held Nero at phaser point. Then I woke up.” 

“ _Kadiith_.” 

Her mouth hopped with a smile that did not reach her eyes. “Yeah.” 

* 

When the window remained open and his ears burned from the cold, toes chilled even through his thick socks, Spock told himself, _Kadiith._ As his approach stifled conversation at the coffee maker and he inevitably misspoke, he remembered that it wouldn’t always be so hard. When he dwelled on Nyota and felt a desire to alter the past, he remembered a principle of Surak, _Past, present, future connect at one juncture. Now is and was and will._

* 

Spock saw the message first thing in the morning. It had been sent the previous night while Spock had retired for his meditation. He checked his PADD briefly for new correspondences from his colleagues and students, stunned at what awaited him. 

_Hey Spock,_

_Hope you don’t mind me messaging you. I got your contact info from Uhura. It’s been awhile since we talked, and I was wondering how you were._

_Would you like to hang out sometime? I’d love to meet up and chat. We could go for coffee at Spinner’s Gold for old time’s sake. I’m free in the evening and on weekends._

_\- Jim_

His hands tingled from the weight of the PADD. _Old time’s sake._ They possessed no rituals, a month passing since they ran into each other, yet those were Kirk’s words. When was the last time anyone had spoken so familiarly of Spock? He could not remember. Michael, perhaps. But she was not at the Academy, and she was his family. And such familiarity coming from Kirk, it felt almost too good to be true. Spock wanted rituals, habits — something that was theirs. A friendship that would define them both, something destined to cross universes and benefit their lives. _I’d love to meet up and chat._ Did Kirk want it too? 

He contemplated replying, but hesitated — a mental block stopping him. He considered himself, the life he led, the one he didn’t lead, and contemplated what kind of addition he could bring to Kirk’s life. He doubted he could provide anything that would bring much significance. He had nothing to offer Nyota, nor a life outside of the routine of work and grading and awaiting his next assignment in outer space. 

_Old time’s sake. I was wondering how you were._

He set the message aside and headed off for work, forcing himself not to think about it anymore. 

* 

It was very hard not to think about it. 

How best should he reply? How long should he wait before initiating the correspondence? Would he speak familiarly or professionally? There was no good answer, no prior experience to rely on. His previous experiences with Kirk had been in tense battlefield conditions, not well-meaning electronic messages. And, truth be told, after the termination of his relationship with Nyota, seeds of doubt in his ability to communicate had taken root. He did not want to repeat the errors he had made with Nyota — especially when a correspondence with Kirk did not involve the tumultuous navigation of him stealing Spock’s possessions or potentially ingesting quantities of caffeine that accumulated to levels that spiked anxiety. 

These worrying thoughts were ubiquitous, impacting his ability to function. 

He was able to ignore the issue to the best of his ability while working on the Kobayashi Maru replacement as his lapse in focus went unnoticed by anyone but himself, but during his advising sessions with students, his deficiency was pronounced. During a mock-thesis defense, he posed the same question twice to one student, sensed his mind drifting during a lengthy answer, and twice caught himself glancing at the clock. 

At the end of the meeting, as he gathered his notes and materials, his lone engineering student approached him. She hitched a bag over her shoulder and glanced at him briefly before looking away. “Professor,” she said, “is everything all right?” 

Spock regarded her with a blank stare to her. “Certainly, cadet.” It was all he said, succinct and polite, yet her mouth snapped closed with a click of teeth, gaze kept low as she turned and left in rather a hurry. Spock lifted at eyebrow. 

* 

The following day marked a particularly busy day for the simulation. 

Ten students prepared for their examinations, and to accommodate everyone in a timely manner, Spock took on extra shifts. He stood behind the mirror with his hands tucked at the small of his back, watching as hopefuls assumed their position in the mock bridge. 

As this was another no-win scenario, everyone failed. 

Some took it with stride; others arose from their seats with red-cheeked fury, fists at their sides and boots heavy. An Admiral observed the first three tests, whistling low after the final failure. “This one beats the Kobayashi Maru out of the water.” 

Spock stood stoically, yet couldn’t staunch feeling a sense of smug satisfaction. 

“Test #4 entering the simulation room, sir,” announced the assistant at the console. 

A young woman in her second year sat down in the chair and crossed her legs, getting comfortable. “Would you guys kick me out of here if I told you I just spoke to Jim Kirk?” she said. 

Spock startled — his head jerking only a centimeter, fingers twitching. 

The admiral had started picking up his coat, but leaned over the conn, pressing the button to send his voice down below. “That depends, cadet, on the subject matter.” 

The cadet down in the captain’s seat couldn’t be any older than twenty-one, and her preposterous beehive haircut was barely regulation. Spock stepped away from the window and busied himself with examining screens over the shoulder of the lead assistant. “Commence program,” commanded Spock, and the assistant readily complied. 

The lights in the simulation room lowered, and all conversation ceased. The cadet down below muttered venomously. The hot mic picked up every word. Spock settled into a calm stance to observe her inevitable failure of the test. 

He was not surprised by the sight of her vacant stare as the lights switched back on at the end of the test. 

* 

Spock sent a reply: _I am free any time this weekend. If you’d prefer to meet earlier, I am also free tonight._

Hours later, he received: _Tonight I’m invited to a little thing with the Chess Club. Wanna join? It’s BYOB._

Spock arched a brow, ready to decline, yet he remembered the cadet with the beehive haircut. An infuriation of unfounded depths left him reeling. 

_I find that adequate. Shall we meet up before the event?_

Kirk sent his address and a time. 

* 

Barely a second passed after Spock’s hailing before the door opened. 

Kirk wore his red uniform, a smile sweeping up his features, those blue eyes vivid like the bright skies hidden behind the fog. Spock’s heart thrummed, his collar felt too tight. 

“Spock, good to see you! I was a little scared you weren’t going to come, but who are you if not a man of your word, right? Ah! Sorry—” He stepped away from the door and opened it further. “You, uh, probably want to come in.” 

The dormitory was no larger than his own, the passageway between the doorway, Kirk, and himself a wisp of space that didn’t prevent the slightest brush between them as Spock passed by. When he breathed in, he smelled Kirk’s scent — laundry detergent, a soapy freshness, aftershave. Strong, but not overpowering; it was pleasant and welcoming, He’d prepared for the Chess Club. Fascinating. 

Warmth toasted Spock. He’d still been a little chilly after shaking off the cold in the corridor, but the dorm room was warm with the kind of temperature that came from closed windows and the heater cranked on just a tad. It was by no means near the levels Spock preferred, a duvet was necessary, but part of him almost longed for Kirk to be his roommate instead of the person he was forced to live with. 

Spock took two strides into the common area, two desks tucked between closets and the ends of two twin beds. Medical journals splayed across one of the desks, a can of Georgia peaches cleaned and filled with pens. “I presume that your roommate is Cadet Leonard McCoy?” 

“You presume correctly, Professor S’ch — S’ch — ” The door clicked shut, and Kirk banged his head against it, as if that would beat out Spock’s name from him. Spock turned to regard him, his eyebrow whisked up. “ _S’chn — T’gai._ Goddammit.” 

“I believe congratulations are in order.” 

“More like something to drink.” 

Spock stepped aside behind the chair tucked into McCoy’s desk as Kirk took up the limited space in the common area. Crouching beside McCoy’s bed, he folded over sheets and blankets to produce a crate from beneath the bed, pulling out a bottle and tossing over his shoulder a striking smile. “Tonight the Chess Club is the happenin’ place, but Starfleet’s still a dry campus, so I was thinking we could pre-drink here.” 

Spock tucked his hands behind his back. “Vulcans do not drink.” 

“Uh huh.” 

“Alcohol has no intoxicating effects.” 

“There must be something.” 

A lightness filled Spock, as Kirk implied an added depth to Vulcan culture. “Sweets produce an equivalent alteration of behavior. Chocolate is most potent.” 

Kirk rose to his feet, bottle of whiskey limp at his side, brows drawn together as he fixed Spock with a disbelieving stare. “Get out of town.” 

“Vulcans do not lie.” 

Kirk scoffed. “Chocolate, seriously?” He swept toward the replicator and punched in his card, pointing the neck of the bottle at Spock. “Forget predrinking, we’re playing some games. I’d suggest three truths and a lie, but since apparently Vulcans _don’t lie_.” He snapped up the glass in the replicator and took the necessary one step in order to get near enough to offer it to Spock. 

Seven marshmallows floated in a mug of hot cocoa. Kirk nudged it closer. Spock looked up at him, finding the most earnest of expressions laid out to him. 

Spock hesitated — but was not entirely certain as to the reason. 

The last time Spock had gotten drunk, it was at a party in his second year at the Academy. He’d been long singled out by his peers as unsociable, and thus a series of unsavory behaviors flooded through the corridor. His laundry had been stolen from the dryer and dumped in a trash bag in the sink. Parties were thrown without his notice and well into the night. Hushed silence as he entered a common area. His mother had managed to bring out this difficulty into conversation, and her advice had been both mundane and surreal: _Why don’t you hang out with them? I think they feel like you snubbed them._ He did not see the logic, yet when another unscheduled party was thrown on a Thursday evening, Spock did just that. A group of peers quieted as he entered the party, but after he greeted them politely, they shoved a brownie in his hands. _It’s loaded_ , they said. _Just wait 20 minutes._ Marijuana had no effect on him, but the chocolate hit his system in half the prophesied time. After his fifth brownie, he waltzed with the RA, despite not knowing how to dance, nor being fully aware of when they started dancing. The next time he did his laundry, it remained in the dryer until he came to retrieve it. 

The prospect of intoxication did not give Spock pause, but the absurd juxtaposition of a whiskey drinker seeking out a partner in a hot cocoa drinker did. It was Kirk’s readiness to accommodate Spock — the playful tone in his surprise to learn new factoids of Vulcans, like it not only fascinated him but changed the scope of the evening into something better. _Would you like to hang out sometime?_ Kirk had written. _I’d love to meet up and chat._ These were not lies. 

As Spock took the hot cocoa, he was careful to ensure a brush of fingers, lowering his shields to sense _excitement, hopeful, charmed_. He glanced up and found those blue eyes watching him, Kirk’s smile softening to a little quirk at the corner of his mouth, almost like he didn’t realize he was still smiling. Spock drank more than he intended. 

“Hey, hey!” Kirk touched his shoulder — the warmth from his hand seeped through his uniform. “Slow down. The night is young, Spock. The night is young. Can’t believe it. You’re drinking me under the table already.” 

Spock felt a little smug. “I believe it is your turn, Kirk.” 

Kirk unscrewed the cap of the whiskey and leaned over to the replicator to fish out a cup from the cabinet. “How much do you think is in that mug?” 

Spock regarded it with a quirked brow. “Unidentifiable. Perhaps a can of beer.” 

“Great.” Kirk punched his card into the replicator, pouring whiskey into the glass as a new hot cocoa was summoned. “So here’s what we’re gonna do. On the count of three, you’re chugging that, I’m taking a shot, then… I dunno. We say weird stuff about ourselves we won’t expect the other to say.” 

Spock pretended to consider this, but really he attempted to understand why his heartbeat quickened. “That is acceptable.” 

“Okay, so. One… two… three…” 

Jim threw back his head to swallow down the shot, his Adam’s apple prominent and the barest hint of his collarbone peeking past the edges of his uniform. Spock brought the mug to his lips and closed his eyes as he chugged it, swallowing the sugar rush of marshmallows down whole. Had he sipped it, it wouldn’t have felt like a punch to the face, but his eyes fluttered and his throat caught as he tried not to cough. He settled a hand behind him on the desk, perching lightly on it to regain balance. 

Kirk did cough. “God, that was strong. Okay, so. I once put a 3,000 piece puzzle together in less than 24 hours. Yes, I did sleep.” 

An arid crater of potential facts cracked under Spock’s scrutiny. “I almost underwent the Vulcan ritual of kolinahr.” 

“What’s that?” 

“It is a Vulcan technique of purging all emotion.” 

“That’s—” Kirk shook his head, but he was smiling. “Spock, that’s not weird.” 

“I assure you. By Vulcan standards, it is.” 

“You hate feeling feelings. News at 11. Here, take a drink. There has to be a consequence for that.” He retrieved the full mug of hot cocoa from the replicator and shoved it at him. “Go on. Drink.” 

Spock traded the empty mug for the new hot cocoa, taking a small sip as he observed Kirk place the old mug into the replicator for it to disappear back into individual atoms. Kirk poured himself another round of whiskey. 

Kirk glanced at him, and they locked eyes. For a moment, they simply stared at each other, then Kirk toasted his glass. “Wanna go again?” 

They drank — and they drank. Spock lost count of how many mugs he had, but eventually he could barely stand. He almost surrendered his full weight onto the desk, but then Kirk stumbled over to him, grasping his wrist — and with his shields failing him, it was a whirlwind of emotion that he couldn’t pinpoint long enough to identify, but he drank it in like cocoa. Kirk meant to sit Spock down on a chair, but the second he started pulling away, Spock tugged, not wanting to leave that alluring pool of emotion. Kirk fell against him — then they were falling into a tangled heap on the floor, chair skidding into the wall as they came down hard. 

“So Vulcans _can_ be clumsy.” 

Somehow they’d fallen into the space between the beds, with Spock cornered between Kirk and the window. Kirk stretched out a leg into the common area with the desks. Spock struggled to cross his legs in the meager space, then gave up and let his legs relax wherever they wanted to go, knocking into Kirk’s knee. 

“We’re drunk,” said Kirk. 

“Astute observation, cadet.” 

Kirk smacked Spock’s arm. “I have a name! It’s Jim. Call me Jim.” Spock didn’t grace that with a reply, but tested it out in his thoughts. _Jim._ “Still up for Chess Club?” 

“We’re not too intoxicated?” 

“On the contrary, I think we’re intoxicated enough.” 

* 

Chess Club couldn’t meet in their usual location, Jim explained, as everyone vowed to be drunk enough to break regulation. It was an annual tradition for the club to get together drunk and compete into the night against one another until a lone victor arose. The winner often came by complete surprise. “An evening of leveling the playing field, so to speak,” as Jim had explained it. There were a few special rules: If someone clumsily knocked over their piece, wherever the tip of the piece landed, unless the square was occupied, they had to move it there. A twenty second rule was in play, where each move must occur within twenty seconds. 

When they arrived, the tournament was already underway — music played loud enough to influence the mood yet did not affect hearing and thus prohibit discussion. Jim clapped a hand on Spock’s shoulder, scanning the room. “I look forward to defeating you,” he said. 

Spock opened his mouth for rebuttal, but then Jim swept past him and slipped into a vacant chair, startling the other person occupying the table out of a drunken stupor. 

“ _Dabo!_ ” came a shout from a chess match. 

“Hey there!” A giggly woman bounced in front of Spock. She rolled a full water bottle between her palms. “I’ve never seen you here before!” 

“This is my first time.” 

“Great! Wonderful! Well, I guess you know the _theme_ of tonight. It’s super fun, everyone’s gotta play, and you, _professor_ , gotta play too.” She pointed the water bottle at him. “Ready to get destroyed? I’m playing to _win_.” 

Spock regarded her, trying to inject meaning into her nonsensical words, but his mind was spinning, the effort proving difficult. “You can attempt success, but it is not a guarantee.” 

She never lowered the water bottle. “Okay, you’re on.” 

She spun on her heel and nearly twisted her ankle, but hopped back up to stand. Spock trailed behind her, hands tucked behind him, yet had to course correct back to walking in a straight line more than once. 

“ _Dabo!_ ” 

Spock slipped into his seat with his usual grace, though his movements felt sluggish. 

His partner set her water bottle on the table and collapsed onto a chair. “By the way, I’m Monica.” 

“I am Spock.” 

The chessboard was already set, and without meaning to, they’d decided the colors ahead of time. Monica sat on the side of the white pieces. Wiggling her fingers, she reached across to make her first move — a pawn set one place forward. Spock prepared a similar move to draw out behaviors worthy of analysis out of Monica, yet when he raised his hand — somehow the very act of lifting his wrist jarred his hand out of Spock’s intended position. His hand was too close, too near, too big. Everything resulted in his eyes briefly becoming unfocused. His fingers flinched — and knocked down not only his rook, but two pawns. 

“Ah!” said Monica. “Aha! That counts. That _so_ counts!” 

“Illogical.” 

“It’s the rules.” 

Riled up, Spock spent the rest of the game in measured silence with narrowed eyes in an attempt to focus his sight. His mind was spinning, but he refused to lose his first match. He remembered Jim’s parting words — and instead to make them infamous. They’d played for 100 moves without a single checkmate in sight — then karma struck Monica. Her wrist knocked into her king, the tip of the piece falling into a square directly in the path of Spock’s castle. 

He staunched the quirk of his lip. “Checkmate.” 

She bristled. “It’s not over until it’s over.” 

A palpable suspense descended upon their table as both latched onto the sight of Spock’s hand drifting toward his castle. He pinched it between his fingers, mindful of his arm, and he would not deny the reality of holding his breath as he drew the piece near her king. He set it down on the king’s square, pushing the white piece beyond the perimeter. “Checkmate.” 

She sank in her chair. “You have to scream ‘dabo.’” 

Spock froze. “I refuse.” 

“It’s the rules.” 

“I will not.” 

“Then you don’t win.” 

“Nonsense.” 

“It’s the rules.” 

“Dabo.” 

Monica sighed. “You need to scream it. Like everyone else.” 

Spock steepled his fingers, irritation rising up. He closed his eyes, but that only made his dizziness more apparent. Taking in a deep breath, he left the waves of drunkenness excuse his illogic, belting out, “ _Dabo!_ ” 

Refusing to scream “dabo” again, Spock set out from playing another game and instead joined the throng of people gathered around the chip bowl. A small crowd of cadets gathered around the snacks and remarked on strategy — which for tonight primarily consisted on how to avoid knocking over pieces — and speculated on who was to be the champion. Spock refrained from partaking in any chips or discussion, scanning the room for signs of Jim. He looked over the room several times without finding him, and could only conclude that either his back was turned to Spock, or, alternatively, he’d left without saying goodbye. 

“...taught chess by my mom in elementary school. What about you?” 

Spock’s attention flickered away from the room to the conversation just beside him. 

“I wish my mom taught me, that’s so cool. I just joined a club in high school because all my friends were doing it.” 

Spock’s dizzy mind waned in attention to observe his surroundings. 

“Hey — uh, professor?” 

They looked at him warmly, though with a hint of trepidation. Spock inclined his head to beckon them to speak. 

“How ‘bout you? How’d you learn chess?” 

He didn’t remember, but his father once informed him after he inquired about the subject. Often, his parents played a game into the night as they unwound from the day, and his mother enjoyed holding him as a baby on her lap at all times, however illogical given the common occurrence of Spock’s infantile hands reaching out to touch the pieces. She’d hold his hands and kiss them, whispering strategy into his ear. As he aged, he eventually stopped trying to grab hold of the pieces, but holding him in her lap and whispering strategy lasted long enough. 

He settled upon the cadets a most impassive stare. Their backs straightened. 

The one who asked nervously reached for a chip. “Uh, never mind. C’mon, let’s play another game.” The cadets left. 

Spock watched them leave, a sense of satisfaction over their absence quite substantial, yet his heart was thrumming and his collar began to feel too tight, the music too loud. His spinning head had not annoyed him prior — in fact, the effects had not been off putting at all — yet now he desired a return to control, to obtain full control of his mental faculties. Because even though he’d never uttered a word to those cadets, he couldn’t stop the memory of being in his mother’s arms, of her introducing the foundations of chess — something he didn’t remember yet brought him significant relaxation. He was drunk, and his thoughts catastrophizing, and his controls not strong enough to end it. He wondered what else she might have taught him without his conscious realization. What he would never come to know because his only surviving parent had returned to their vow of silence. He’d never build new memories with his mother. She would no longer influence and introduce relaxations to him. He had lost a person who felt significant joy in holding him in her lap even when it was illogical, because her profound human emotions cared more about his emotional benefit than the logical ramifications. 

His eyes began to prickle. Spock seized with horror. 

He needed to leave. 

He did not seek out Jim for farewell. There was little time. 

Spock attempted to regain control of his emotions, yet the difficulty in his pursuit reminded him of a failing of his half-human nature, of his biological connection to his deceased mother. 

The bitter cold winds that swept across San Francisco, the Academy so close to the Pacific Ocean. It bit at Spock’s exposed skin and trickled through the fabric of his clothes. His eyes prickled — the moisture there at odds with the cold weather. Spock jarred to stillness several paces from the door, shocked into silence over the cold which plagued him every day since he came to San Francisco — this cold that was alien to the core of his Vulcan nature. He’d never be warm again, not with his roommate’s selfish tendencies and Starfleet’s uniform regulation. Just like he’d never hear his mother’s voice again, lost in his forgotten memories, in the past, unattainable, futile — 

“Spock!” Footsteps clamored, and a hand gripped his shoulder. 

The scent of laundry detergent, a soapy freshness, aftershave engulfed him in a familiar shroud of uncertainty — Jim Kirk. His counterpart’s words swam in his mind: _a friendship that will define you both._ Spock was a boring recluse who couldn’t communicate with his girlfriend, impossible for his father to love even after their family and species had grown so small. _Half-Vulcan, half-android_. Useless. He brought nothing worthwhile to someone so exceptional as Jim. 

A red uniform swooped in front of him, and Spock carefully avoided looking into those blue eyes, those eyes which rivaled the skies, these otherworldly Earth skies his mother had been born under. 

Jim touched his shoulders, lightly with either hand. “Breathe. Breathe, can you try that?” Jim took in a slow, deep breath and let it out just as slowly. Spock observed him for several seconds before attempting it himself. “You’re doing great, buddy.” 

Laughter came from behind them — then two cadets passed them by, glancing over their shoulders at them. Spock looked down at Jim’s chest, his breath stuttering. 

Jim nudged him. “Let’s move somewhere more private? Come on.” 

He slipped a hand to Spock’s back and guided him away from the Chess Club’s door. Spock walked in a daze, not entirely conscious of his movements or the direction they took, mind warped with an onslaught of images of his mother — smiling, touching his cheek, the silence of her mouth moving before she plunged off the cliffside — 

They walked into some garden. Jim brushed leaves aside and brought Spock to a bench surrounded by trees. He couldn’t see the campus beyond the gardens, though it still lurked behind the foliage, yet logically this meant that no one beyond the gardens could see them. Spock felt anxiety begin to unfurl. 

Jim dropped his hands into his lap, and for a moment, all Spock could sense was the sounds and sensations of his own breath slowly entering and leaving his lungs, the quiet of campus at night — light footsteps, unearthly silence. 

“Everything okay?” said Jim, rubbing hands over his thighs. “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.” 

Spock closed his eyes to eliminate outside stimuli and struggled to focus his thoughts on a single image: the burning flame of a lone candle. A typical teaching tool for mediation, the flame symbolized the eternal fire that lived inside every Vulcan. Spock focused on the flame, ignoring the memories that trickled through, but the one thing he found he could not ignore was Jim sitting beside him. Whenever he rubbed his legs, he brushed against Spock’s elbow. It ought to irritate him, as it distracted him from regaining control, but it’d been so long since someone noticed Spock or his well being that it instead grounded him in the present. 

“I’m sorry for not being there for you. It was terrible of me to just get you drunk like that and then abandon you. You wanted to hang out, and I let you down in a terrible way.” 

Spock opened his eyes, not anticipating those words. 

“I really appreciate that you came, genuinely. I understand if you don’t want to see me anymore.” 

Spock listened to his rambling apology, confused and trying to understand what he was saying. He realized now that he stood on a precipice. _I worry about you, Spock. You don’t talk to me. I can’t get you to talk to me. So much has happened over the last year and we don’t talk anymore._ If he didn’t act, he’d repeat the mistakes of the past, the very mistakes that ruined his relationship with Nyota. 

He didn’t want to discuss his mother. He wanted to be rid of these memories so he could regain a sense of control and carry on in life with efficiency. Yet Jim believed himself to be at a grave fault; Spock could not let such a profound misunderstanding linger. Spock considered his words. “There is no need to apologize,” he said. Jim’s sharp breath did not go unnoticed. “You committed no error.” 

“Then what — no, wait. Don’t answer that. You don’t need to answer that.” 

Spock closed his eyes, unable to face this conversation otherwise. He intended to progress toward the friendship his counterpart lauded — and there was only one way to achieve that. He must speak his thoughts. But he was at war with himself — logic’s roots ran deep and to deny its stature incensed a great apprehension in him. It ran counter to his every value. Logic provided reprieve from pain, allowing him to focus on meaningful endeavors. To discard it in order to face emotion rocked him to his core, yet — having never done so, he’d lost someone dear. He had a chance to try again with Jim. 

Spock considered his words. “I do not want to talk about it, but I believe succumbing to this desire has only created the unhealthy environment in which I live. As you are aware, 5.6 months ago, Nero deposited red matter into the core of Vulcan and destroyed the planet, and with it, murdered my mother.” 

“Spock, you don’t — ” 

“I was reminded of her tonight, and I…” Spock gathered his thoughts, yet one cut clear past the others and shook him. _I can’t remember her voice. I cannot remember her voice._ “Memory is the ability to encode, store, retain, and recall our past experiences, but these memories are not recreations of the past. They are comprised of the information that we considered significant at the time these events originally occurred. They depend on our instincts to sort through irrelevant details. It seems my mother’s voice was not considered important enough at the time.” 

Jim’s hand stilled. Spock had grown so accustomed to the movement that once it stopped, reflexively he opened his eyes, blinded by the slight glow of the moon and the campus’s lights. The press of Jim’s shoulder against his kept him from drifting away into his thoughts. 

“When I was a kid, it really bothered me to see fathers coming to pick up their sons at school.” Jim spoke lowly. Spock glanced at him, finding that Jim was staring as blankly as he had been. “It didn’t bother me when they picked up their daughters, but with sons, it got under my skin. My mother was always working or off planet, and there was no way my stepdad was coming to get me, and if he did, I just would have left before he came. But that’s not why it bothered me. It was never my father coming to pick me up, and my father was never going to pick me up because he was dead.” 

Spock listened carefully — of course, he knew of George Kirk and his death. Everyone did. Especially anyone with aspirations to join Starfleet. Shamefully he recalled using this knowledge against Jim during his hearing over cheating on the Kobayashi Maru. They’d never spoken about that moment since, and he wondered what reason Jim had to divulge such personal information to the very person who had used his limited knowledge against Jim, and to hurt, to salt a no doubt aching wound. He looked away from Jim, suddenly feeling shy. He watched the ground, glimpsed the sediments of dirt and leaves shoved between cracks in the pavement, but he didn’t absorb any sensory detail from it. He was too drawn to the ebbs and flows of Jim’s voice, a little hushed, clipped and guarded, and wondered why Jim told him this private information, told it to a man who had once been so cruel. 

“One day, after I got home, I was so angry. I slammed the door shut hoping it would irritate Frank, but it turned out he wasn’t even home. I remember that because it pissed me off so bad. I wanted someone to feel as angry as me, so I broke into my mother’s bedroom and started up her computer. I didn’t have any plans. Maybe change some settings, something really petty and juvenile that would cause an argument but nothing major. I wound up clicking on random files and came across this folder full of video and audio files with only dates as names. They say curiosity killed the cat. Well, I’m still here. Turned out those files were old messages my dad sent to my mom when he just started his posting on the Kelvin. 

“I watched every single one, then ran to my room to get a USB to copy all of them. There’s one I still watch from time to time. It’s an audio transmission saying how he made space for her on the Kelvin, and that there’s — there’s room for the baby, too. It was the first transmission I found where he talked about me.” Jim steeped into silence. “I listened to it everyday after school when I was thirteen, and soon I stopped being so angry all the time. I stopped caring about other boys’ dads and started caring about my own. If you have anything your mother sent you, I think you should listen to it.” 

Spock’s breathing settled sometime during Jim’s words. He didn’t know what he’d expected when he first spoke — he hadn’t anticipated laughter and scorn, as these were not traits he associated with Jim, yet in their absence, Spock felt a deep sense of gratitude at the response Jim did give him. He considered his advice. “I have audio and visual transmissions she sent to me. I have never listened to them since the first time. I fear they might cause… emotional distress.” 

Jim shrugged. “It’s up to you.” 

“Do you believe they will help?” 

“You never know, it could. It helped me. But I never forgot my father, so it might be different.” 

They fell into silence. Spock found he did not need to rely on envisioning a candle burning to experience a sense of calm, an ease that seeped into his bones and relaxed him as he had completed a deep meditation. And of all this had simply come from words, from expressing himself — the very act still horrified Spock, to delve into his emotions and conjure them verbally. It exposed him in ways silence never could. He wondered if Jim kept the same dilemma before he spoke of his anger as a child; he couldn’t recall the last time a person has exposed their inner world to Spock. He felt as though a responsibility had fallen onto his shoulders, one of guarding this information Jim had shared and protecting it from those who might do him harm. 

“Thank you,” said Spock. 

“You’re welcome.” 

Spock frowned. “I believe you misunderstand. I wish to thank you for trusting me by sharing your personal anecdote.” 

“My—” Jim coughed. “My personal _anecdote_? Well, that’s one way of putting it.” 

“I merely wish to express gratitude.” 

“Spock, we’re friends. This is what friends do. We’re here for each other. It’s not some anecdote like running to get the last carton of milk at the grocery store and succeeding. That was…. That’s just what friends do. Don’t thank me. It feels weird.” He stretched out his arms and legs then jumped up onto his feet. He smiled at Spock, kindly, and caught his eye. “Walk you home?” 

Spock’s countenance softened. “Yes.” 

* 

Jim waited until Spock keyed into his building and waved goodbye through the glass. Spock raised his hand in the ta’al, as it seemed polite to return the gesture with more than the tilt of his head, and the smile which brightened Jim’s face made the effort all the more worthwhile. Spock’s stomach fluttered at the sight of the pure delight on Jim’s face, and Spock continued to feel the queasiness well into the journey to his dorm room. 

Rob left the window wide open, the room freezing, but Spock didn’t find it within himself to feel any irritation. He recalled Jim’s smile, his refusal to accept Spock’s gratitude, his empathy toward Spock’s plight, and no other emotion took hold in him but the contentment that washed over him at the thought of his newfound friend. 

Spock dressed into his pajamas and woolen socks in a hurry, but the cold bite of the air still formidable. Yet before he tucked himself between his layers of duvets, he grabbed his PADD and a set of headphones, connecting them to the PADD as he sorted through his old correspondences with his mother. A knot ached in his throat once he found her files. The last message was dated two days before the Narada incident. Spock remembered listening to it, how hasty he’d been to rush through the message in order to leave for work. He slipped into bed and pulled the blankets to his chin, tucking it around himself to seal off any avenues for air to slip under and chill him. 

He hesitated before opening their last message, scared of his mother’s voice. Of his reaction to it. Of the emotional turmoil it might rouse. Yet then he remembered Jim’s hushed voice, the warmth of his shoulder pressed against his, the easy quiet on their walk home. Spock had an irrational, though distinct, sense that though he lied in bed with a sleeping roommate as the only other inhabitant, he was not alone as he ventured into his mother’s transmissions. Jim, though not there, cared. 

Spock pressed on the transmission. 

Seconds later, the wondrous sound of his mother’s voice danced over his ears. 

“ _Spock, my son, how I miss you…._ ” 

He drifted asleep to his mother’s voice, smiling and, in his heart, he felt warm. 

* 

The next morning Spock awakened with a splitting headache and soft eyes blinking open, looking up at the ceiling as if seeing it for the first time. He gazed at the white paint — and that was all it was, white paint, the same sight he saw first thing every morning — but the morning rays scanted off it and illuminated the room, sending it aglow with the embrace of morning. It was so stunning that for a moment Spock ignored his piercing headache and basked in the fresh promise of the day. 

He folded over the blanket and rose. 

Working at a desk, he saw his roommate — truly saw him. He didn’t feel the irritation over this individual stealing his toothpaste or leaving the window open. He saw the man — windswept hair and green eyes and a height too tall for their cramped beds. Spock bowed his head, saying, “Good morning.” Rob nodded in response and mumbled a reply over the brim of his coffee mug. 

On another day, the lukewarm response might have dug under Spock’s skin. Were a Vulcan to give such a greeting, then it would become a statement about their species. A human was only having a bad day. He snatched his PADD off his bedside table and switched it on as he went to the bathroom for a hypospray. He pulled up his correspondences with Jim, a little eager as he did so, and typed out, _Good morning._

By the time he injected a pain killer and brushed his teeth, a message awaited him: _Morning! Hope you don’t feel half as bad as I do. Drink water :(_

Spock’s stomach fluttered, his gaze softening as he read the words. 

He still hated Rob. That he doubted would ever change. But his mother had loved him and Jim Kirk wished him well. Everything else melted into the background. 


	3. Chapter 3

November had finally arrived. 

With a sense of satisfaction, Spock surrendered from his tiny closet his parka and large cowl, while most of the campus managed with a light jacket. 

With his clothes finally accommodating for the weather, Spock took to leisurely strolls around campus. He found that the ability to roast within the confines of his clothes while in the midst of endless fog and mist and the occasional downpour of rain to be a fascinating expenditure. He also wished to spend as little time in his dormitory as possible. Rob neglected to tidy his side of the room for the past 2.9 weeks, and the sight of it impeded Spock’s ability to relax. He had gone a little over a week without proper meditation as a result, but the walks sufficed in their absence. 

In the first week in which winter clothes were permitted, Spock had been perhaps a little overzealous in acquainting himself with his walks. He roamed the campus aimlessly without a given path, first starting at a humble thirty minutes before progressing past an hour once he realized that the walks were a pleasant enough substitute for mediation — and one away from the cramped dormitory with Rob. The setting sun crested the horizon and bathed the Academy in streams of magenta and flaming orange that reminded him of the bronze skies of his childhood. As the skies plunged into their reddest hues, Spock ventured into one of the isolating gardens and permitted himself a moment of indulgence to allow his imagination to roam. He gazed past to treetops toward the clouds tainted mahogany — and he could have been ten years old in his family’s garden. He heard his mother’s voice, the melody of her gentle, kind laughter at discovering him in his indulgence of the gardens. With his thick winter clothes roasting him, it was the closest he felt to being on his home planet since he materialized on its surface on that fateful day. 

He’d been basking in a garden for 10.3 minutes before inevitably departing. The skies were dimming black, the thick fog blanketing out the stars, and with the twinkling lights ever present on Vulcan wherever one went, the wondrous effect of the sunset vanished. Spock left once the skies turned lavender to prevent the bitter ache of reality disproving his hopes. 

He’d taken not a single step out of the gardens before he saw it — a stack of books attached to a pair of legs, charging at him. Spock barely had time to raise his forearms to shield his face before the stack of books crashed into him. 

The books flew past him and crashed to the floor. “Noooo!” whined the owner — a voice that sent Spock’s heartbeat sharply rising. 

Spock stared for a moment, stunned to see Jim out of context from the Enterprise or a scheduled meeting. Never before had he seen Jim in the frame of a student. They hadn’t seen each other in person since Chess Club. They’d exchanged transmissions, mainly grumblings on Jim’s end over classes and links to amusing news articles that Spock read and commented on, his observations often met with praise, smiling emoticons, and onomatopoeic laughter. He had no frame of reference for these transmissions, but instantly they left him feeling warm. 

Jim collapsed down to his knees and reached for the books, stacking them onto a pile. Spock bent down beside him and started gathering books. He glanced over at Jim every now and them. Like others in the Academy, he donned a light red jacket. It bore little adornments as this was not regulation, yet it was tailored to Jim’s shoulders and waist in the way that emphasized the betrayals by the Academy’s uniform. 

“You really don’t need to do this,” said Jim. “I wasn’t looking where I was going. Sorry about that — wait, _Spock?_ ” 

Cheeks warming, Spock didn’t know why, but he ignored him. 

The book titles were fascinating. _The Prime Directive: The Ultimate Code. The Astrochemistry of Dynamic Fields_. But most curiously, the one Spock reached out to with a delicate touch, _Pre-Surak Vulcan Grammar._ Spock still had a vivid memory of learning the ancient Vulcan in childhood, the studies only accomplishing in improving his understanding of his native tongue than anything else. 

Jim hastily stacked books. Two piles had formed, one in front of Jim and the other in front of Spock. “Thanks for the help,” said Jim sheepishly, rising. 

Spock settled the grammar book atop the pile and reached for another chemistry book before standing up himself. He regarded Jim with a raised brow. “It seems your evening is planned.” 

Jim stared, then a little smile tugged at his mouth. “Yeah, that… sounds about right. I’m really looking forward to dive into these.” He took a step forward. His arm jerked — Spock observed with amusement, and though he did not know why, his instincts deduced that had Jim not been holding the books, he would have touched Spock’s arm. “Hey, I was wondering. I don’t have anything else planned tonight but to start reading. Do you want to grab a bite to eat? Maybe in the mess?” 

The allure of avoiding additional time in his dormitory enticed Spock. “I am available.” 

Jim’s smile grew. The apples of his cheeks blossomed and his eyes crinkled. Spock’s facial muscles relaxed at the sight. 

The line at the replicators lasted no more than 5.2 minutes. They quietly navigated the tables, walking around until they found something free and private, a place for only two people and a stack of books. Jim settled down and pierced some roasted carrots onto his fork, yet Spock remained standing in order to remove his jacket. The endlessly loud chatter of the cafeteria melted away into pure silence after Spock popped off buttons from his coat and pulled down the zipper, a startlingnoiseforcing Jim to look up. 

Jim leaned onto his elbows, waving his fork at Spock. “How you’re dressed, you’d think it’d be 40 below with a blizzard outside.” 

Spock laid the coat over his chair and assumed his seat. “I merely find heat an agreeable temperature.” 

“No argument there. If I wanted a cold, I’d have stayed home.” He smirked. “Hey, don’t you think it’s funny? When I was freezing my ass off in Iowa, you were living the good life. If we were friends back then, I would’ve begged my mom every day to send me packing to Vulcan.” 

“Interplanetary travel is expensive compared to the cost of a jacket. What you suggest is illogical.” 

“Remind me to never fantasize about being childhood friends. Now I’m almost certain you would have crushed all my foolish dreams.” 

“I shall remind you.” 

They looked at another, Jim smiling lightly, Spock’s neutral stare neither stiff nor relaxed, yet Jim kept smiling as if Spock was smiling back. Perturbed by the light flutter in his side, Spock dipped a spoon into his plomeek soup and settled into eating, setting aside their conversation and forcing a moment of silence. 

Which they enjoyed for a while. Jim was bent over his plate, elbow resting on the table as he lazily ate, but then he started glancing up at Spock, eyes darting away whenever Spock regarded him. 

Spock settled down his spoon. “Speak your thoughts, Jim.” 

An innocence softened Jim’s countenance. Bowing his head, he never met Spock’s eye as he asked, “Maybe we could make a habit out of this? On Wednesdays, Bones and I have dinner, if you don’t mind.” 

Spock thrummed with contentment. “I am amenable to the idea. My evenings are free at this hour Monday, Wednesday, Friday.” 

Jim smiled, too slowly raising his head to meet Spock’s eye. “Me too.” 

His heart pounded at his side. The coincidence was improbable. “Prior to this hour, I partake in light walking,” he said, the words coming out unbidden. His mind lurched to a halt, stunned by the words he’d spoken without any consideration. He carefully considered Jim’s reaction — he wore the same easy smile, perhaps a little softer. 

“Are you inviting me to walk with you?” said Jim. 

Spock glanced away. 

Jim’s smirk was audible. “You’re inviting me to walk with you.” 

“I am merely sharing an anecdote—” 

“Too late. No take backs. As luck would have it, I finished my last class on Monday, Wednesday, Friday an hour ago.” 

Their eyes met — those lively blue eyes trained on Spock with an intensity that left him breathless. 

Nothing had been set in stone; Spock could refuse him. While his prior experiences with Jim had only been in the context of cheating on a test, sneaking aboard vessels, commandeering a ship through nefarious measures — still Spock had the instinctual sense that if he rescinded the unspoken invitation, Jim would accept this rejection gracefully. The luxuries of walking alone went without question — a rare moment of pure silence in which Spock existed in the parameters of cherished solitude, away from a roommate he detested, coworkers who drained him, the reminders of the family no longer in his life. Were Jim to join, he’d sacrifice this opportunity. Yet — since Jim, his mother’s voice had become a cherished memory, one he could return to whenever he wanted. Was that evidence of a friendship that would define them both? An annoyance riled him up at the notion — his counterpart had never lost his mother in such a way. The Jim of the alternate timeline never had the occasion to console Spock, either. Perhaps they had formed _a_ friendship, but certainly the very friendship Spock himself embarked with the Jim of his timeline was unprecedented. 

“Yes,” he cut in, severing his thought process. Those blue eyes blinked at the severity of his tone. Spock tempered his countenance, not speaking until the tension within him unfurled. “We may share walks.” 

He doubted his counterpart ever had the opportunity. 

* 

Wednesday arrived with an ever present mizzle that seeped its shivering talons into Spock’s bones and never relented for as long as the sky was grey and hanging low. Raindrops rolled off the few windows in his office, which Spock studiously ignored in favor of analyzing lesson plans and reading through drafts of his students’ theses. But eventually the hour ticked past and forced Spock to leave the dry sanctuary of his office for the puddle infested outdoors. 

From this part of campus, in order to arrive home in the least amount of time, it required passing by the medical center. As he made the journey, he ran into Leonard McCoy, who scowled at the sight of him. “Oh, it’s you.” 

These hallowed words marked the first conversation between the doctor and himself since the Narada incident, and, though illogical, it felt like no time had passed at all. 

Spock bowed his head. “Good evening.” 

“It’s cold as hell and they’re sending us out in these pieces of junk they call clothes. ‘Good evening’ isn’t my choice of word.” Curiously, he stepped closer and spoke in a hushed voice. “Listen, it’s not my idea, but Jim’ll kill me if I didn’t try, and it looks like you had no intention otherwise. If you want, why not join us in the mess for dinner?” 

A spike pierced his heart. Spock forced his features to remain neutral. “You do not mind?’ 

“‘Course not. Heck, it might even be fun.” 

Raindrops fell randomly and Spock slipped on his fluffy, faux-fur lined hood, and a second later an umbrella bloomed before McCoy. Braced over their heads, the familiar pitter patter of raindrops pounded. As they stepped beneath an overhang leading to the cafeteria, McCoy muttered under his breath, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” 

Bewildered, Spock followed the direction that McCoy glared at. Near the cafeteria entrance, two cadets were huddled close as they kissed. Her fingers were twined at the nape of his neck; his hands cradled her cheeks. He leaned against the wall, knees apart as she leaned her body into his, his shoulder hunched slightly as his superior height accommodated her smaller frame. Hood drawn up and face obscured by her head so near, it was impossible to see the man, yet Spock doubted he could ever forget such a magnificent beehive. It was the cadet who failed at the Kobayashi Maru’s replacement exam, in the flesh. 

Spock quirked an eyebrow. “You disapprove of these cadets’ private lives?” 

“Hers, no? His, yeah.” 

“I fail to see the relevance.” 

“Because it’s Jim, and I don’t have to like his choices if I don’t want to.” The snap of his umbrella closing embodied pure annoyance. 

A twist pulled at Spock’s gut that he ignored as fastidiously as he did McCoy’s explanation. Yet as they slipped past the couple, Spock watched them briefly out the corner of his eyes, as well as he could with the wispy furs of his hood obscuring his peripheral vision. The hoodie covered much of the man’s profile, even at such a close distance, yet now that Spock knew to look for familiar features — the button nose, thick eyebrows, the pointed chin of a square jaw shadowed with the ghost of a beard — clearly it was Jim who kissed this cadet. Jim kissed her slowly, a small smile teasing his lips, mouth too taut for a proper kiss, one that she shared equally, as they chuckled lightly at something private between them. 

Then the door frame cut past them and the ruckus chatter of the crowded cafeteria was all Spock knew. He grimaced against the stark white everything — the blinding lights, painted walls, table tops. The bright luminosity washed out details, the constant chatter making it impossible for Spock to linger on his thoughts — and yet, that vision of Jim smiling as he kissed that cadet’s lips still flickered in his mind’s eye. 

“Good grief,” mumbled McCoy. “It’s rush hour.” 

The line for the replicator curled around from the designated area toward the walls. McCoy wove his way to the end, Spock smoothly trailing behind him. They stood in line for a minute or so when someone slipped beside McCoy. Spock was too tired from waiting to complain even internally. 

“Bones!” 

_Jim_. A pique of interest poked through the boredom dulling Spock’s senses. His hood hung back, hair mussed and small bruises along his neck with his lips swollen pink. Spock lingered over the hickeys. 

Jim tapped shoulders with McCoy, who just scowled. “There’s a line, you know,” said McCoy. 

“Come on. Don’t act like you don’t want me.” 

“Oh, it’s never been an act.” 

“Okay, okay.” Jim scratched bashfully at his stubble, but then he happened to glance up and catch Spock’s eye. “Hey.” 

Spock bowed his head. “Hello.” 

“ _Hello_ ,” Jim said, deepening his voice in what presumably was an imitation of Spock, then stepped around McCoy and smacked Spock’s shoulder. “Didn’t think I’d see you today!” 

“I ran into McCoy.” 

Jim smiled crookedly. “Thank you, Bones.” 

“Yeah, yeah. So, Jim, tell me. How are things going with that lab partner of yours?” 

Smile softening, Jim licked his lips. “Meghan? It’s going well.” 

“Got any work done tonight?” 

“Depends on what you mean you mean by work.” 

The line moved forward, bringing them in front of the replicators. McCoy punched in his card. The conversation was dropped as they took turns at the replicator, forgotten by the time they prowled for a table. 

As they sat down, McCoy said, “I don’t like her.” 

“So I’ve heard,” drawled Jim. 

“She has a lower opinion of you than I do.” 

“Thanks.” 

“She asked for pointers about the Kobayashi Maru, the test that almost got you expelled. AKA details on how you cheated.” 

“The test is not sentient, doctor,” said Spock. “Jim nearly got himself expelled. The test did no such thing.” 

McCoy glowered. “You of all people would say that.” 

“And how does asking for pointers on computer programming mean she has a low opinion of me?” asked Jim. 

“You’d think if someone really cared, they wouldn’t remind you of a foolish mistake that almost ruined your career and act like it’s your greatest achievement. But maybe that’s just me.” 

“It’s only a few dates. I know she doesn’t want anything serious, and neither do I. There’s no crime in having fun.” 

“Feel free to back me up here, Spock.” 

“I see no reason to. Jim’s choices are his own to make. Besides,” said Spock, hit with a glimpse of memory, of those cozy smiles between slow kisses, “she failed the test.” 

“Can you just…” Jim was laying out his silverware and napkin, but paused to look at Spock. “Can you just _say_ that?” 

“There are no regulations against it.” 

“Just like there’s no regulation against Jim and his girlfriend, but that doesn’t mean it’s advisable,” said McCoy. 

“She’s not my girlfriend.” 

“You’ve been dating her for over a month and you kiss in public. You’re right. For you, that’s practically marriage.” 

“ _Ha_ ,” said Jim, “ _ha ha ha_. You’re so funny, Bones. Have I ever told you?” 

“Not enough.” 

Jim and McCoy tucked into their dinner, wordlessly picking at their plates, and Spock watched them for a moment, waiting for someone to mutter out a pointed phrase, but they remained focused on their meals. Spock minded his own thoughts, quieting his inner voice of clutter and turning his attention to the plomeek soup with salad and a garlic buttered bun. 

“Forecast says it’s gonna rain all week,” said McCoy, before taking a bite of mashed potatoes. 

Jim groaned. “Good thing we got the heater fixed. Can you imagine going without it?” 

“Yes,” said Spock — and though both Jim and McCoy swerved to look at him, no one was more surprised than himself. Yet the small admission of Rob’s proclivities with the window alleviated the bitter rage that quelled in his gut all semester. “My roommate leaves the window open at all times. Our dorm is often as cold or colder than outside.” 

McCoy’s fork clattered on his plate. “By golly, the Vulcan has a roommate.” 

“Isn’t that bad for you?” said Jim. “All the cold weather, I mean? You’re wearing a winter coat like there’s a 24/7 blizzard when there’s only some rain…” 

“Bad is an understatement. It’s a miracle you haven't caught a cold yet with your immune system so compromised.” 

“I utilize several blankets, and by cultivating many layers with my pajamas, the cold is rarely felt.” 

“Pajamas… the hobgoblin wears pajamas…” 

“Why do you tolerate that?” said Jim. 

Spock lifted his shoulder in the facsimile of a shrug. “The alternative of my preferred temperature isn’t any better for humans.” 

“You could compromise, though. Set it at some temperature that doesn’t inconvenience anyone.” 

Spock’s eyebrow slowly rose as he remembered the toothpaste, the PADD playing into the night, the messes which grew exponentially as exam season descended upon the Academy. “Unlikely.” 

“Why don’t you bunk with us sometimes?” said McCoy. “Your sleeping arrangement isn’t healthy.” 

“My sleeping arrangement?” 

“You know, that cold window keeping you awake. Don’t give me that crap about Vulcans needing less sleep. A bad night’s sleep is still a bad night’s sleep. I have a redeye shift at the clinic tomorrow and won’t get back until 6AM. Do you wake up around then?” 

As a matter of fact, Spock did. “Yes.” 

“Then it’s settled. Bunk with us in my bed tomorrow. Heck, any day I’m not using it. Get some rest.” 

Spock shook his head. “Your offer is kind, doctor, but I must refuse. I would be imposing.” 

“You can’t impose if I’m offering. Now accept or I’ll keep badgering you. I can’t in good conscience leave my bed empty when I know you’re out there suffering.” 

Something about the intensity of McCoy’s look stopped Spock short from retorting. Truth be told, he didn’t truly wish to decline. “As you wish.” 

* 

The next day after work, Spock returned to his dorm to change uniforms and to collect a pair of pajamas, toiletries, a thermal blanket in the inevitablity that Jim and McCoy’s room was too cold, and fresh clothes for the following morning. Jim buzzed him up at the intercom, and he navigated the familiar pathway to the dorm room with his messenger and duffle bags in tow. 

Jim answered shortly after his hailing, the door bursting open with a burst of hot air washing over Spock. He closed his eyes reflexively and leaned forward. 

“Welcome,” said Jim, opening the door wider. 

It rained even more than yesterday, Spock’s coat chilly from the droplets. He swept into the dorm room, his desire for the warmth overwhelming. It toasted his cheeks, sent his nose wrinkling from the sudden difference, the humidity growing hot beneath his coat would have been stifling were it not so glorious. Spock opened his eyes only to prevent himself from walking into a wall as he went to McCoy’s desk and set his belongings in the free space beside it. Jim collapsed onto his desk chair, the knees of his hairy bare legs splayed. 

“You’re out of uniform,” said Spock, noticing for the first time that Jim wore a short sleeved white shirt and grey shorts. 

Jim leaned back into his seat, hands behind his neck and elbows stretched out. “How are you liking the temperature?” 

Spock glanced at the window. It was firmly shut, the blinds pulled up and revealing the stunning view of raindrops and the adjacent building. His arms began to itch from the humidity in his sleeves, and for once in a long, long while, Spock felt compelled to remove clothing. “You did not need to do this,” he said, unzipping the jacket. 

“What are friends for?” Jim yawned, a hand belatedly slapping over his mouth. “I don’t know what you have planned, but I was hoping to crack some spines on my books tonight.” 

The words didn’t register immediately. Spock folded his jacket over McCoy’s chair and felt as though he saw it for the first time — this is what people typically did with their coats once they entered a room. They removed it. And then they didn’t rush to pile on other forms of layers. He would need to rethink his pajamas. He would need to rethink his evening, as more options now arose. 

“I think I will mediate,” he said. He could sit with crossed legs on the floor, on the bed, anywhere, without layers of blankets necessary. 

“It’s not a problem with me here? Or without incense?” 

Spock shook his head. “No.” 

“Cool.” Jim swiveled his chair around to face his desk and grabbed a book, thumbing it open to a bookmarked page. He rested his head in his hand, but that didn’t hide the small smile teasing at the corner. 

Spock was staring at Jim, he knew so very well, but he could not stop himself from looking at a man smiling at Spock’s own joy over a hot room. It was unfathomable. Nyota had the habit of heating her dorm special for him before he arrived, but she had been his girlfriend. Partners had a vested interest in securing their loved one’s comfort that was not necessarily mirrored in friendship. Granted, Spock seldom had friends in life. Bullies were more common, as were cordial colleagues and peers. Yet still, the profound significance of McCoy sacrificing his bed and Jim’s trade of his own comfort for Spock’s were not lost on him. Tonight was exceptional. He wanted to repay it, but did not know how. 

“Spock,” said Jim, those blue eyes turning to look at him. “Go on. Meditate.” 

Spock felt all tension melt away as he gazed at Jim, whose smile grew past a little teasing curl and wrinkled the corners of his eyes. 

“Thank you, Jim.” 

“Meditate. Now.” 

Later on, after the books muddied Jim’s mind to a pained stupor and Spock arose from the deep recesses of meditation, they lay in the darkness as the pattering rain lulled them into quiet. Only a single, thin blanket covered Spock. Jim was sprawled above all his blankets, having ditched his shirt and shorts to lay in only his boxers. Spock gazed drowsily at the ceiling. 

Jim yawned. “Hey, Spock?” 

“Yes?” 

“Do you wanna go for a walk together tomorrow?” 

Spock closed his eyes, feeling inexplicably warm. “Yes, Jim.” 

* 

The sky still hung low with grey sheets of fog, the precipitation thick and easily mistaken for a drizzle that clung to one’s skin till it ached. Spock left work approximately 8.3 minutes ago and trailed through a winding path until arriving outside Jim’s classroom in the scientific wing of campus. The door remained shut, yet in a sound minute, it burst open and exhausted students filtered out. 

Every blond male had Spock’s heartbeat quickening. Spock did not understand why. They were all just cadets or first year plebes, not an admiral or fellow colleague. Yet at the sight of every golden haired man, Spock stood on edge, a keen eye hardened as he examined their faces. He counted six men who fit the description of James T. Kirk. The flood of students petered out into the kinds of mists that grazed the campus, no James T. Kirk in sight. 

Spock waited a minute longer, only to find the professor leaving with her side bag — and not a second later, Jim emerged, talking animatedly though Spock could not hear him from this distance. The professor nodded amiably as she locked the door. They shook hands, Jim grinning. The professor parted. Left alone, Jim smiled at the thin air, slipping a hand beneath the shoulder pad of his messenger bag absently. Then he looked up — and that drifting stare and lazy smile fixated on Spock. His face brightened instantly. 

“Spock!” cheered Jim, jogging over to him. He punched Spock’s shoulder. 

Spock remained steady on his feet. “Jim.” 

“You’ll never believe it. Dr. Simmons is a leading scholar in the morphology of Klingon transitive verbs, and she’s agreed to hold a seminar with the Xenolinguistics Club. Uhura’s gonna flip out. She didn’t think I’d be able to convince her. But I’m her best student, so… I guess she was convinced.” 

“You are a member of the Xenolinguistics Club?” 

“Treasurer.” 

Spock looked him over from head to toe. “Fascinating.” 

“I am, aren’t I?” said Jim, beaming. 

As Spock was roused to correct the misunderstanding, Jim slugged an arm over Spock’s shoulders and guided him away from the classroom and toward the quad. His arm bunched up the hood against Spock’s neck, covering up avenues for cool air to lick at his bare skin. His firm grip hugged Spock close, securing him along his side, and for a second, Spock found himself yearning for Nyota’s intimacy — no one had ever held him this closely until her. Vulcans avoided touch, and even his mother had refrained from extravagant physical affection after he’d grown to be a certain age. Jim was warm, snug. Walking came awkwardly, his strides less certain and shoulder constantly bunching beneath Jim’s hold. But it was pleasant, in its own way. 

Spock focused on keeping a steady pace. 

“I was thinking about this walk all day and have it planned out,” said Jim, his pitch even, confident, close to Spock’s ear. 

“I often walk without purpose.” 

Jim chuckled. A nervous shiver raced up Spock’s spine and rose the hairs on his head. 

Jim squeezed his shoulder, then let him go, hand brushing over his back. Foggy air nipped at the nape of his neck and the sudden freedom to take longer, surer strides disoriented him. It was logical to remain separated, he reasoned. Walking as they had prevented them from achieving the full potential of their walk. 

Silence enveloped them as they trailed through the campus, a casual width separating them that Spock felt all too aware of. These walks were his refuge from the monotonous cycle in which he lived. It ought to feel like a disruption with Jim beside him, but never once did a cold, simmering unease plague the space between them. Jim navigated them through campus, and with Spock being guided, it still resembled much of the walks that he’d taken a favor for. Their quiet was aimable, requited. Never did Spock feel a pressure to engage in conversation, nor did Jim force one. He minded the road before him yet permitted his gaze to linger upon the sky, at the sunset’s wondrous crimson waves scattering across the clouds and horizon. Were the orange and yellow to emerge, Vulcan’s twin skies would bathe the campus with its majesty. 

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” said Jim, hushed. 

Spock glanced at him, ensnared by the light catching those blue eyes as they witnessed the sunset. “Indeed.” 

Jim smiled. “We’re close.” 

They’d passed through department buildings and trespassed into areas not often occupied by students or instructors. Grassy parks with thick trees stretched along the cement pathway they walked on, dumpsters and recycling bins lined up wherever there was a building. The racket and shrieks of construction drained the reserves of Spock’s well-stocked patience, yet these were the only noises to exist here. A mixture of things that didn’t belong and yet found themselves together, it was a forgotten place. As the trees broke out into a clearing, they approached the fenced enclosure of the construction zone. 

Jim broke out into a quicker pace, heading for criss-crossed metal fences overlooking what appeared to be the construction of starships parts. These pieces were small enough to build on Earth before being propelled into outer space, where they’d be utilized in repairs for starships damaged during the Narada incident, of which the Enterprise was one. 

Jim curled his fingers around the fence and leaned into it. Spock stopped beside him, hands tucked at his back. 

“An intriguing destination you’ve brought us to,” said Spock. 

Jim watched the construction like something unexpected might happen and he needed to see every moment. “One day all that’s going to be our home.” 

Spock regarded the construction with a raised brow. 

“I’m going back on the Enterprise.” 

“If that is where Starfleet places you.” 

Jim fixed Spock with a look. “Oh, come on, Spock. Don’t give me that. _Of course_ , in the end, it’ll be what Starfleet commands, but I just know it’s the Enterprise.” 

“You cannot know that.” 

“I never thought I’d be where I am today, but I wanted it badly enough, and it happened. It’ll be the same with the Enterprise.” 

“If,” said Spock, “that is where Starfleet places you.” 

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re no fun? Come on, Spock, there must be something a little illogical that you want and just _know_ will happen.” 

“There is not.” 

“Not even as a kid?” 

Memories of childhood sifted through a mental sieve. Nothing sprung to mind, until — _Look at him. There’s disappointment in his eyes._ “Never.” 

“That’s a shame.” 

Spock’s stomach pinched. “Kadiith.” 

“What is, is.” 

“You speak Vulcan?” 

“Oh,” said Jim, chuckling, “no. It’s the language of the month in Xenolinguistics Club. I’ve been memorizing some phrases.” 

They fell into an easy silence as they looked at the construction. There wasn’t much to see, not from this distance, close enough to glimpse fragments yet far enough away as to avoid detection. 

Jim turned and leaned his back against the fence, hands in his pockets. “I ruined your walk, admit it.” 

“Why do you believe that?” 

“I mean, obviously this whole thing made more sense in my head. Now it’s just… very loud. Do you wanna get out of here?” 

“What would you prefer to do?” 

Jim shrugged. “I dunno. Usually at this time I go to the gym and spar.” 

Intriguing. “I find that—” 

“ _Jim Kirk? Is that you?_ ” The voice vaulted over the construction and sent both of them jolting toward the point of origin. A cadet jogged up to them, hard hat tucked under her arm. “Wow, it is you!” 

Jim slapped on a smile that Spock didn’t recognize. “Hey!” He stuck out his hand, and the cadet beamed as she shook it, smiling brightly. 

“I’m working on some panelling for the Enterprise,” she said. “Getting her ready for you. I’ve heard about what you did with Nero, saving Earth. Your father would’ve been proud.” 

Were Jim’s face capable of cracking, Spock wouldn’t know. His smile only grew. “Thanks.” 

The cadet nodded briefly, then jogged off. 

As soon as her back turned, Jim’s face flattened into deep, agonized lines, his blue eyes steel and ice. His lip curled. “They don’t _know_ that he would’ve been proud. _No one_ could know that.” 

Spock’s heart pounded at the abrupt shift in tone. He sorted through a rough recollection of everything the cadet had said, arriving at no proper conclusion until his processing screeched to a halt: The cadet had mentioned George Kirk. Spock saw Jim anew: cordial and polite, he’d been nothing but welcoming to the cadet, yet this masked a deep rooted ache Jim had confided to him that it had once been a red hot fury that tore him asunder from the pain of loss — a loss he’d been born into, grieving someone he never knew yet was constantly reminded of. 

Spock chose his words carefully, not wanting to provoke Jim, not knowing where the line was drawn. “It was merely a statement to convey that you commited a heroic act worthy of commemoration.” 

Jim glared down the pathway at the cadet’s back. “They fabricated things they can’t know.” 

“I agree. It is an oversight to assert factual statements over such a matter; however, to ascribe deeper intent to this oversight is neither logical nor healthy.” 

Jim scoffed. “‘Neither logical nor healthy.’” 

“Indeed. It prevents us from acknowledging the true conundrum at hand, which, if you permit me, I can hazard as guess as to what bothers you.” Spock trained an intent look on him, carefully holding his breath, as if that would have any effect on calming Jim. 

Jim closed his eyes and waved a hand. “Permission granted.” 

Spock couldn’t help but smile, reminded of his brief time as Jim’s first officer. “I believe you feel anger over the reminder of what you have lost. Due to your father’s passing, you will never know his opinion on your accomplishments in Starfleet, just as you will never know the experience of being picked up at school. I believe the root is the misconception that you share no relationship with you father, but I do not see that as true.” 

Jim's chest rose and fell with breath, each crest a little less sharp, though the harsh lines of a frown still roughened him. “Really? Seems pretty true to me.” 

“I disagree,” said Spock, softly. He reminded himself of the facts. “A father’s relationship with his son does not begin at birth. As you grew in your mother’s womb, did he not reorient his life toward you? He changed the layout of his quarters on the Kelvin to accommodate his son. He inquired about your well-being during transmissions. This implies a father who developed a, though one-sided, relationship with his son. What else do you know about your father’s relationship to you?” 

Jim remained silent — but then, he ran a hand through his hair before turning toward Spock and giving him his full attention. He no longer frowned — perhaps too weary and stricken to do so, he stared back at Spock with hollow, empty eyes. Yet he was no longer infuriated. “He wanted me to be called Jim, not Tiberius like his dad.” 

“A loving act. He considered your future and the social ramifications that a strong name like Tiberius might have on a child.” 

Jim’s eyes were still and never parting from Spock. “This conversation is absurd.” 

“It’s not. What else?” 

“He left me some money and his old car repair tools and fishing rods.” 

“Fascinating. Do his tools not imply he might have hoped to pass on technical knowledge to you?” 

“You can’t prove that anymore you can prove he’d be proud of me. Listen, let’s not go down this road, okay? I’m not in the mood.” 

“What are you in the mood for?” 

Jim was silent for a brief moment, then declared, “Sparring. I think some sparring would do me good.” 

Spock’s eyebrow hopped. “Would the walk to the gym not only act as an irritant?” 

“Why go so far? The grass over there looks nice.” 

Jim kicked away from the fence and went to the trees. Spock slowly trailed behind him. Jim tossed off his messenger bag at the roots of the tree, plucking off the buttons of his winter jacket and dropping it over his bag. He spun around, working on removing the top layer of his red uniform jacket. 

“What?” asked Jim. “Scared you’ll lose?” 

“Negative.” Hesitantly, Spock settled the tip of his boot over the grass, a depression forming where the dirt had long ago softened into mud from the rain. “I only fail to understand the relevancy in sparring after our discussion.” 

Jim winked. “Indulge me.” 

Jim swept backwards, grin wide and lopsided, eyes dancing as he sized Spock up, taunting, magnetic. He crouched with an arm outstretched, palm flat and raised to greet Spock — it was the starting position of _suus mahna._ The wicked quirk of his lip and the crackling energy sharpening his gaze betrayed the stoicism necessary for a proper stance. Jim was utterly seriously about this — the relationship between the prior upset and this stark desire of brute force possessed no connection that Spock could discern. 

Spock unzipped his jacket and deposited it alongside his bag, rolling up the sleeves of his thermals to his elbows. The cold burned in an instant, but he ignored it to assume the same stance as Jim. “I did not know you were trained in _suus mahna_.” 

“I’m not. Just, since we’re studying Vulcan, I got curious about the culture.” 

They fell into silence as they got more involved in sparring. Spock examined Jim’s stance — his crouch was well supported, his arms angled at a slight descent that would affect his ability to perform counter maneuvers. Spock contemplated mentioning the imbalance in their skill sets, but then Jim charged. 

He smacked Spock’s arm away — yet Spock, trained for years in this practice, punted the hit and chopped at the back of Jim’s neck. Jim would have collapsed to his knees, only Spock grabbed his wrist to manipulate him onto his back — it was a standard move in _suus mahan_ , one that would save Jim the humiliation of such a quick defeat. But before Spock could shove him over, Jim streaked past his defenses and grabbed a handful of Spock’s neck. A rush of emotion slammed into Spock that tore the air from his lungs, heart pounding, stomaching flipping. Spock’s grip slipped as it overwhelmed him. An opening then came. Jim spun his wrist out from under Spock’s hold. Instinct kicked in, and Spock slammed his elbow over Jim’s arm. A second later, Jim mirrored the position and they stood there, immobilized. 

Jim pushed at Spock, and Spock pushed back. They slowly went in a circle, feeling the other out. Mud caked under their boots, grass smoothed out beneath their steps. 

Then Jim dove — hooking his arms under Spock’s knees and shoving his weight onto him. Spock slammed onto the grass, the wind knocked out of him, the mud shockingly cold as Spock’s shoulder crashed into the filth. Jim fell over him and kept him down. 

“Yield,” Jim panted, so close to the tip of Spock’s ear. 

Spock struggled against the pinning. “That was no _suus mahna_.” 

“Told you I’m not trained in it. Yield.” 

“I yield.” 

Jim stood up and held out a hand for Spock to grab. Nowhere Spock touched would prevent skin-to-skin contact, as under his uniform Jim wore a standard issue black short-sleeved shirt. Spock latched onto his hand, an outpour of _adrenaline, euphoria_ flooding his senses. Jim hoisted him to a stand, and those same emotions were crackling in his gaze as he grinned at Spock. 

“Ready to get beat again?” said Jim. 

“On the contrary. Now that I’m aware that ‘fighting dirty’ is within the normal parameters of this game, I do not plan on it.” 

Jim laughed, smacking his shoulder. 

This time the match was over before it had barely begun: They assumed a neutral wrestling position, circling at a measured birth before Jim charged. They grappled, then Spock hooked an arm around him and chucked him onto the grass. Jim fell with a gasp, his face pressed into the ground as Spock sprawled on top of him, arm stretched over Spock’s waist and locked into place, immobilizing him. 

“Yield,” said Spock. 

Jim tugged at the hold, which Spock tightened. “All right, all right. I yield.” 

Spock untwined himself from the hold. 

In the blink of an eye, Jim surged. 

The sky was spinning, mind reeling, then Spock was slammed onto the grass. 

He bucked. Without a solid grip on him, Jim crashed onto his back. They fought for a hold firm enough to pin a man, only they rolled around on the grass. Head spinning, Spock closed his eyes to counteract the dizziness, focusing on keeping his grip on Jim firm. 

Jim laughed — first a light chuckle that didn’t register as Spock concentrated, then it devolved to a deep, belly-aching guffaw that indisposed him. Spock waited for his laughter to tear him out. Then he pinned his knees over Jim’s thighs. Jim’s hands were putty in his grasp, all too simple to stretch his arms wide over his head and hold them down with a firm grip. 

_Yield_ , he meant to cut in, yet he was struck silent by Jim’s blissful smile as the laughter overwhelmed him, eyes closed and tears springing up. “Jim,” said Spock, beckoning, only this forced Jim into silent hysterics. 

“Sorr—” A laugh cut Jim off. 

Spock did not understand what was so funny, nor did he much care. Jim was no longer upset about the cadet’s mentioning of his father. That was all that mattered. He adjusted his hold on Jim’s wrists, then relinquished them entirely. Jim raised a quivering hand to his face, first pressing it against his mouth before covering his eyes and letting the laughter burst out uninhibited. Spock abandoned his position pinning down Jim’s thighs and instead sat on the grass, crossing his legs as he settled between Jim’s knees. 

“Sorry—” 

Jim sucked in a breath, exhaling a chorus of giggles. 

His eyes raked over Jim’s frenzied stomach shaking as he wheezed for air, the bright smile which stole his face and conscious act. Spock could have thought _Illogical_ or _This would never happen on Vulcan_ , but his mouth twitched, heart fluttering a beat, and he thought, _Adorable._


	4. Chapter 4

Spock tipped the ajar door open further, welcomed by the sight of Jim replicating tea and an already set game of chess on his desk. Spock dropped his bags by the bed and trailed to the window, looking out at the dreary rain clouds which cast the campus in shadows. The window’s cool glass couldn’t compete with the outdoors, nor the warm dormitory. The room had never been as hot as the first night, as Spock refused to discomfort Jim in his own home, so they compromised on a temperature that suited them both. Somehow, despite the decrease in temperature, the dorm room remained the warmest place on campus. 

“Tea?” asked Jim. 

“Yes,” said Spock, gratefully. “Thank you, Jim.” 

Jim handed him a steaming mug and replicated another. 

Spock breathed in the steam, the plumes of vapor tickling his nose. 

Jim coughed, covering his mouth but failing to hide the tiny quirk of his lip and spark in his eyes. Spock honed in that the smile, tea and window and the world beyond all forgotten. 

“What?” said Spock, curious. 

Jim sipped tea, mumbling, “Nothing.” But his eyes still glimmered with amusement. 

Spock ignored this lie and instead focused his attention to the chess board. “Would you like to play?” 

The small quirk bloomed into a grand, pleasant smile that awakened butterflies in Spock’s stomach. “I was hoping you’d ask,” said Jim, pulling out a chair and sitting down before the black pieces, but Spock remained where he stood for a second longer before stealing McCoy’s chair, charmed by the adorable tug at Jim’s mouth, the happiness in his eyes. He’d never noticed smiles before, they were a simple, involuntary reaction to positive stimuli, but ever since the incident where they sparred in the grass, Spock paid attention to Jim’s. He wished he knew what caused his smiles, but involuntary reactions were fickle creatures. 

Spock set the game in motion by moving his pawn one place ahead, a maneuver Jim repeated. They were still and focused, moving only to progress the game forward or drink tea. But then Jim reached for his knight, and the resulting move caused Spock’s eyebrow to hitch up. 

“Fascinating.” 

“Fascinating?” 

“Your ability to be both objective and creative while not falling victim to the folly of looped thinking proves you to be a formidable chess opponent.” 

“I—” Jim reached for his mug but didn’t drink, bringing it to his lips to hide behind. Spock watched for a smile — and found it: a small one, smaller than his earlier smile, one that did not quite reach his eyes, but still they flickered with modesty, a vulnerability. “Thanks, Spock.” 

They played in silence, heading only the pitter patter of rain as the droplets continuously fell and collided with the window glass, the cement from the ground down below, outside and away from them. As Spock analyzed his next move, Jim reached for his PADD, asking, “Music?” Spock nodded, and soon soft, slow jazz from 20th century Earth played from the PADD. Spock toiled with two moves — one would result in a checkmate within 10 moves, the other had the potential for six, unless Jim realized a potential move that would progress the game for at least 20 moves. Spock reached for the ten-moves piece, but then, as he made to grasp it, halted. 

Jim snorted. 

Spock glanced up, mesmerized by the gentle, meandering half moon of delight that softly tugged at Jim’s mouth. 

“You’re thinking awfully loud,” said Jim. 

“Impossible,” said Spock. “That which exists only in one’s mind cannot possess a volume perceived by others.” 

Jim snorted again, nose wrinkling and teeth showing as he smiled wide. He bit his bottom lip, yet the amusement still burbled up and prevented him from hiding that smile. A warmth flowed into Spock’s stomach, queasy yet pleasant all at once. He’d said something humorous, something that made Jim laugh. He’d spoken without thinking, a mere correction of an illogical assertion, but he’d unwittingly brought forth one of those smiles. His stomach flipped, just at the simple idea of it. 

Spock risked the 20 potential moves to advance the piece that tipped in Jim’s favor. Three moves passed before Jim discovered his advantage, and the game was prolonged. His enigmatic strategy confounded Spock on more than one occasion, forcing him to make certain decisions he otherwise would have avoided had Jim not expertly threatened his king. When Jim randomly moved a pawn just one square ahead, Spock steepled his fingers before his face and said, “Curiouser and curiouser.” 

Jim stared pensively at the board. “Isn’t that _Alice in Wonderland_?” 

Spock glanced up, surprised. “You’ve read it.” 

“I —” Jim looked at him with wide eyes. “Yes! All the time. I _re_ read it all the time.” 

Spock flicked a gaze over him, what little he could glimpse with Jim sitting behind a 3D chess board and a table obscuring anything below his chest. “My mother used to read it to me as a child.” 

Jim smiled. Gentle, somber, delicate, off center, and lopsided. And his eyes were kind. “That’s beautiful.” 

Heat warmed Spock’s cheeks, and he forcibly teared away from Jim’s smile, feeling caught under its spell. He regarded the chess board and fought to recall his strategy. Compelled, Spock looked one last time at the smile, finding it still there, just as tender and caring. 

* 

The library whispered with the soft hum of computers and shifting pages of textbooks, tables occupied sporadically. Windows glimmered as the light reflected off the glass shielding the library from the bitterly cold night air. Spock focused very little on the fact that soon he would have to venture outside into the night to complete the long journey home. He settled into the quiet of the library — chiefly ignoring the light snores beside him from Jim, who had dozed off not too long ago, the screen of his PADD blank from disuse. 

Spock deciphered the concluding paragraph of his student’s paper on the ethics of mitochondrial tracing of pre-warp societies and could not discern any meaning in it, though it was questionable whether it were the fault of the student or his own physiology. Spock noted his initial thoughts and set aside the paper in order to read a new one. 

Jim snored softly again. Sprawled over the desk, cheek against his notes and papers, there was something innocent and simple about him. The table looked comfortable, inviting, but he needed to wake up. Napping so close to night time wreaked havoc to one’s circadian rhythm. Ordinarily, Spock would ignore a sleeping individual as it was none of his business, and it pained him to disturb Jim when he was so peaceful, but he worried the effects of insomnia caused by this nap might become a detriment to his health, one that warranted an awakening. 

Spock touched his wrist, over the cloth of his sleeve, and pressed lightly, shaking. 

Jim’s eyebrow twitched, but otherwise, he did not move. 

Spock agitated his wrist more firmly. 

A second passed, then blue eyes cracked open, looking away blearily before finding him. “Spock?” said Jim groggily. Then he shifted, his wrist sliding from beneath Spock — and their skin touched. The emotion sifted through them. _Contentment, ease, affection._ Spock rubbed his thumb over the back of Jim’s hand without thinking, wondering about these feelings, these easy, simple feelings buzzing between them, so calm and peaceful. 

Jim sucked in a sharp breath, then sat up and stretched his hands up and behind him, cracking knuckles in his spine. Spock’s eyes roamed over from his biceps pulling at his uniform, the hem of his shirt rising as he stretched. His gaze lingered over Jim, and he didn’t notice that he was watching him until Jim’s hand came down to smack his back, over the scapula of his shoulder. Shocked out of the moment, Spock blinked as Jim patted his shoulder and then turned to his study materials on the desk. Something hot churned in the pits of his belly — Jim’s motion reminded him of McCoy, of how Jim interacted with McCoy. He wasn’t fond of it. 

“Thanks, buddy,” Jim said, yawning and belatedly covering his mouth. “This class is unbelievably dull, but them’s the breaks.” He fiddled with his notes and furrowed his thick brows in consternation, but his eyes weren’t moving, as if he weren’t reading. 

Mindful of himself, Spock regarded his students’ papers once more. He turned open a new essay he had yet to read and attempted to parse the opening sentence, but his mind kept wandering to Jim, distracted by his groggy movements, slow and clumsy as Jim acclimated to being awake. He wanted to say something, but Jim had a significant exam to study for and his grading possessed a tight, non-negotiable deadline. He wanted to understand those emotions — upon awakening and seeing Spock, Jim felt three emotions: contentment, ease, affection. He didn’t remember the last time a person had felt that way in Spock’s presence. Nyota, certainly, but those memories were altered, somehow, shadowed by the realization that she was not truly happy with him. He tried not to become endeared by Jim’s groggy attempts at studying, avoided any thought toward analyzing those feelings, but his mind kept wandering, the side of his body nearest Jim anticipating the slightest movement. But the sting from the smack on his shoulder, the friendly pats thereafter, stopped him short from deep analysis. As did the library itself. 

* 

Spock’s mind could only process so much as he left work and drifted through the office, ever closer and closer to the blessed doors that began the journey home. Darlene and Roger stood by the coat rack, sorting through the jackets and scarves for their clothes. It was the sight of them that spurred Spock to act and stop working for the day — the prospect of working overtime, only to quit minutes into it because of how tired he was, and inevitably being stuck at the coat rack with the majority of his coworkers gathered there, talking, socializing, drained the remaining vestiges of his energy. 

Spock spotted the fluffy hood of his jacket tucked under two other coats, one of which apparently belonged to Roger, as Roger sorted through the topmost coat and floundered over where to put it. 

“Any plans for Thanksgiving, Spock?” asked Darlene. 

Spock gazed longingly at his coat, trapped under Roger’s. “Negative.” 

She shared a look with Roger, who not so discreetly gestured at Spock. “The thing is,” she said, turning to regard Spock, “it’s not official or anything, but some of us at the office who don’t have plans were arranging a little potluck dinner the day before Thanksgiving. Do you want to join?’ 

Spock imagined nothing less dreadful than spending extra hours with his coworkers, unpaid. Yet it was not as though he could refuse. “I shall consider it and update you tomorrow.” 

Darlene smiled. 

Roger handed him his coat and cowl. “Hope you can make it.” 

Spock bowed his head. “As do I.” 

Slipping on the cowl, he tucked the coat over his forearm and left without donning it. 

“Bring a friend!” Darlene shouted out the door. 

A small gathering loitered around the elevator, and Spock numbly raised his shields, too tired to be horrified at the idea of being stuffed into a compact space with so many psi-null minds without any telepathic training to quiet their thoughts. One woman tapped away on her PADD. A man muttered into his phone. A cadet stared ahead hollowly in a semblance of how Spock believed himself to look: skin ashen, eyes widened in an earnest attempt at staying conscious, the last of every brain cell firing off only enough signals to keep the organism moving forward. 

The traveling lantern light up, a bell ringing. Spock shook awake from the living nightmare of consciousness. The doors drifted into the walls, and in one fluid motion, everyone entered. Spock got crammed into a corner, his messenger bag digging into his knee, and gave himself a spare nanosecond to prepare his shields before everyone pressed into him. He tried to focus on controlling himself, yet his mind inevitably wandered. To the impending rain, to the horrors awaiting him at Thanksgiving, to the open window turning his room into an igloo, to the tingling in his knee as his bag cut off blood circulation. Then the doors dinged open, and everyone flooded out. 

Spock watched the doors as they drew nearer like the Klingons had hailed the Enterprise at the Neutral Zone. Storm clouds darkened the skies, evidence of raindrops glimmering on the doors’ glass. Everyone from the elevator took the same journey, so the doors were opened long before Spock got close, the cool bite of the outside nipping at Spock while still in the lobby. 

He struggled with putting on his coat while walking, wrestling with his bag and the zipper, too tired and lazy to logically stop walking and remove the bag before slipping on the sleeves. 

But soon enough Spock was outside and that much closer to home. His stare whisked over the rain soaked pavement, not quite ready to accept his fate. It rarely rained on Vulcan, and this marked the fourth consecutive day of rain. But then his eyes landed on a red uniformed cadet beneath a black umbrella, a holder with two take out coffee cups on hand — a cadet who was walking toward him. 

As the cadet drew nearer, the shadows from beneath his hood cleared away and revealed Jim’s face. Spock’s heart fluttered in his side. The numbed ache in his head lessened in severity, slightly. 

Jim stopped once his umbrella came over Spock’s head, illogical as they both stood under an overpass. Beside them, Spock was vaguely aware of Darlene and Roger exiting through the front doors and glancing at them, but as Spock was off the clock and technically outside of the building, he felt less pressure to check. 

Jim smiled, gnawing on his bottom lip. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” 

Spock inhaled. That much his mind could handle accomplishing. “Your eyes are hurting?” he asked, sincerely. 

Jim blinked, then broke out in a sharp laugh. “No. I’m fine.” 

His laugh — abrupt, a little airy at the end, with a hint of shock and amusement — cut through the fog in Spock’s mind. Spock took a minute step forward to get closer to the wondrous noise. Only Jim stopped him short, shouldering the umbrella to free up a hand and offer Spock one of the take out cups. 

“It’s cold out, so I got us some tea,” said Jim. Quietly, he added, “I missed our walks, and it’s been raining cats and dogs. But I figure you need to walk home, right? Maybe I could walk you?” 

Spock accepted the tea, the sleeve reading Spinner’s Gold, and remembered that the last time he’d been there was also the first time he’d spoken to Jim since the Enterprise. “Walking together is satisfactory.” 

“‘Satisfactory,’” echoed Jim, biting his lip. “Okay. I’ll take it.” 

They slipped away from the building and walked in a dreary daze toward the general direction of his dormitory. Spock focused primarily on not dropping his tea, leaving the perimeter of the umbrella, or bumping into Jim. Absently, he acknowledged Jim dumping the carton that had held their teas into a deatomizing recycler unit. Even more absently, he acknowledged that his voice said the following words, even if he doubted the words were conjured from his own body, “Unfortunately, I have plans for Thanksgiving.” 

Jim snickered, a blessed sound. “Oh, come on. It can’t be that bad to see family.” 

“My father has not spoken to me in months and my sister remains in deep space. No one is aware of Sybok’s location other than legal confirmation of his survival. No, Jim, I refer to a potluck with my coworkers.” 

Jim choked. “You have a _sister_? Who’s Sybok?” 

Spock would have shut his eyes in anguish if he didn’t fear he might have collapsed from exhaustion at the mere resemblance to sleep. “The _potluck_ , Jim.” 

“If you don’t want to go, cancel.” 

“I cannot avoid work functions.” 

“It’s Thanksgiving. Make up some plans. They’ll understand.” 

“I have already declared that I have none. If I refuse, then they are free to assume it is because I am Vulcan.” 

“What does being Vulcan have to do with anything?” 

“They believe I am incapable of forming bonds. To promote the bare minimum of cordial professional relations, I must accept every offer. I accept barely 82.43% of their offers.” 

“That low, huh?” 

“ _Jim._ ” 

“Well, if it’s that awful, why not I come with you? I don’t have any plans. Bones is going to Georgia. Can you invite people?” 

“I can.” 

“Great! Then it’s settled. Chin up, Spock! It won’t be so bad.” 

They drifted through campus without speaking unless to announce the presence of an enormous puddle. The tea warmed him as well as a tea possibly could, but Jim’s very existence beside him, with his umbrella and tea and smiles, kept Spock warmer than anything else. He kept prompting himself to thank Jim and then forgetting to do so a second later, too tired to drudge up the effort of keeping up the train of thought, even for that. The prospect of being closer to home and his bed and the PADD full of his mother’s messages dulled his mind even more. 

Eventually they walked up to his building, Jim following him to the intercom, the overpass not long enough to shelter anyone from the rain. 

Spock turned a blank stare on his friend. “We say goodbye now, Jim.” 

Jim scratched the back of his head, lips tugging up at the corners. It was a peculiar one, Spock thought, a little melancholic and perhaps sprung unknowingly by Jim. Who smiled a sad smile? Yet those pleasant curves and the spark in his eye still lit up his face in the way that fascinated Spock so dearly. He admired the slight movement, every detail and trace. Warmth pooled in his belly. 

“You’re smiling,” whispered Spock, so quiet the rain almost drowned his words. 

“What?” 

But then Jim was ducking his head shyly and rubbing a thumb over his lips, hiding away the smile. Spock touched his wrist, lightly, not strong enough to stop Jim’s movement, and yet Jim froze. Were Spock less tired and brain dead, he might have slapped his own hand away. _Dazed, bashful, nervous_ flowed from their contact.Spock rubbed a thumb over the soft skin on Jim’s wrist, just beside his pulse. 

“Yours is a nice smile,” said Spock. 

Jim cleared his throat, but his smile broadened, eyes crinkling unevenly, one of his cheeks more of an apple blossom than the other. Spock’s hand drifted away and traced along Jim’s arm before falling limp to his side. 

Without another word, Spock punched in the key code and disappeared into the building. 

* 

Spock twitched awake after ten hours of dreamless sleep. Rob had left on his outrageously bright bedside lamp, and Spock pulled the blanket over his head to block it out. His head slipped from the pillow and collided with the tip of his PADD, which he’d lazily shoved under his pillow after listening to transmissions from his mother last night, as he drifted and nodded off. He pulled it out to read the news and rouse himself awake. 

Notifications alerted him to transmissions received in the night. Colleagues, students, Michael, the Vulcan Compound, and — Nyota. 

He sat upright, the blanket falling to his waist and the cool winds from the opened window biting at him. Their relationship had terminated communication between them, and he believed that the desire to revitalize communication rested with Nyota, as she was the one to establish the new boundaries between them and Spock vowed to respect it. He wondered if she was well. He hoped so. Though it pained him, he trusted her judgement, and if her good reason believed a life without him would benefit her, he wished for nothing less than to receive a message that conveyed only that — prosperity and growth, happiness in all that encompassed her life. Nevertheless, he hesitated to read her message. Because he had wanted to make her happy, and he hadn’t made her happy. 

_Spock! How are you? I’ve missed you. I’d say this was only an invitation, but frankly I want an excuse to meet up. The Xenolinguistics Club is studying Vulcan this month and I wondered if you’d be open to join us for a club meeting as a native speaker of the language._

She misses him? Illogical, as her choices led to their separation, but a little knot that Spock had not realized was twisting his heart into pains unfurled at the notion. It didn’t release him in a way he would have anticipated earlier in the year, after that fateful day in Spinner’s Gold. It felt like promise. She shall remain, and of her own desire, and he wanted it. He missed her, not as a man missed a woman, but in a different capacity, one that felt wholly new yet intrinsically entwined in everything he had always felt for her and always shall. 

His steps were light and nod to Rob genuine as he embarked to the bathroom and began his day. The mists which fogged the mirror after his shower did not vex him; he patiently waited for the condensation to clear, his mind admittedly elsewhere in a make believe vision of this meeting in the Xenolinguistics Club where he’d reunite with someone dear and once lost. 

Before leaving to work, he settled on a simple, honest reply to her invitation: _I would be honored, Nyota._

* 

A small cup with the decrepit filth from the coffee maker slid near Spock’s mousepad. He finished typing the sentence to his transmission and peered up to regard the colleague who disturbed him. Alas, Roger and Darlene smiled at him. Always a pair, always lurking. Their eyes twinkled, and they buzzed with an energy uncharacteristic even for them. 

Darlene sipped her coffee, a move that prompted Spock to accept the cup on his desk. He bowed his head before sipping it. “It’s decaf,” she said. “Black, no sugar. Just how you like it.” 

“Thank you.” 

“We’re going around the office asking people if they have any brainstorms for what they’re bringing to the potluck, the Thanksgiving potluck,” said Roger. 

“I admit I have yet to give the matter any consideration.” 

“That’s fine! No one really has. But, uh — we were wondering, if it’s okay, maybe you could share with us a traditional Vulcan holiday dish? We asked if people could make a traditional Thanksgiving dish they had at home, but I don’t think Vulcans celebrate Thanksgiving.” 

Mirth bloomed in him. “My mother was American and attempted for many years to celebrate the holiday, but the difficulty of procuring traditional dishes prevented us from having a traditional Thanksgiving. We did share an annual dinner on the day, however.” 

Their beaming smiles elated him. 

“I wish to update you on my invitation. I will take advantage of the ‘plus one’ offer.” 

Abruptly Darlene jumped, then coughed. “No way! Really? Who?” 

_A friend,_ he almost said, but then stopped short at the memory of Jim waiting for him outside with tea and an umbrella, his smiles, those striking grins and his softer, gentler quirks, the ones where merely his eyes glimmered. He didn’t know how McCoy smelled, but if he closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, Jim surrounded him. He passed by students on his way to work and the fragrance of laundry detergent stole his senses — because it wasn’t just any scent, but Jim’s. He remembered feeling this way once; he felt it toward Nyota in the beginning, when they vowed to speak only of her thesis and their career aspirations and pretended not to overanalyze the implications of shared goals. He still recognized her perfume. She had never been his friend, not truly. There had always been an undercurrent, a connection, a glow to her presence that drew Spock to her like a moth to flame, burning and wanting. Jim didn’t quite glow — he was comfortable, and disorienting, and simply Jim. 

“It wouldn’t be… you know,” said Darlene. 

“I do not know.” 

She leaned in, whispering, “James T. Kirk.” 

Spock considered this. It was Jim’s name, after all. “Yes.” 

“Definitely,” said Roger, “calling my grandma for her green bean casserole recipe.” 


	5. Chapter 5

Overcast clouds loomed over campus and shrouded it in swaths of shadows, the cold foggy air moist and nipping at him. Rain assaulted the black dome of the umbrella as Spock and McCoy huddled close under as they walked silently to the cafeteria. It’d been a humdrum day to a humdrum week and Spock desired little else than to retreat beneath his duvet and sleep until the sunrise, but he required a meal. And he had no choice but to later on also complete a brief session of grading papers in order for his students to prepare for their last exam before classes entered the Thanksgiving recess. He left for the cafeteria promptly after work and ran into McCoy and his umbrella while on the way. McCoy gruffed out a greeting, and then they set off together. 

But it was illogical — the weather was terrible, his day a dull, long, nauseating odyssey — yet an optimism blossomed in his chest and lifted Spock up, nevertheless. He was tired, and he wanted to sleep off the day, but he had not drifted mindlessly through the day. He’d once been quite invigorated. He felt driven to explore its aspects, relish in the little details. He hadn't woken up that day feeling any particular way. Rob left the window wide open, his toothpaste once again was squeezed in the middle, he arrived early to work and avoided unnecessary small talk by the coffee machine, a blissful, fortuitous miracle. Nothing was unusual, and though it was long, the sky a dreary grey and his mind and body weather beaten by his schedule. His heart still skipped in beat along to the steady pattering of rain, his body thrumming with an energy he couldn't explain. 

“You seem perky,” grumbled McCoy. Spock turned his cheek minutely to the doctor. “You have bags under your eyes, but you don’t have that aura.” 

“‘That aura’?” 

“Yeah, you’re not acting like some haughty Vulcan who’s losing patience from walking among us mere illogical humans.” 

“You are not incorrect.” 

“So what’s got you in such a mood?” 

He was saved from answering McCoy's question because they turned a corner, and McCoy gained a single minded focus. He hastened toward the building to stand beneath the eaves and gain further security from the rain — Spock matched stride. 

"Unbelievable." McCoy halted in the quad before they got near the building. 

Spock stopped a second later, never getting out from beneath the umbrella. He glanced over at McCoy and then followed the trail of his furrowed brow and heated gaze to a young couple hugging close beneath an umbrella, faces close in a kiss. 

An eyebrow shot up — the individuals beneath the umbrella were unmistakable, Jim and Meghan. A hot queasy twist curdled in Spock's stomach. His lip curled minutely, but he couldn’t look away. Jim’s eyes were closed, his fingers lightly carding through her hair and stroking her cheeks and ears, eyes closed and lightly smiling, like they existed in a world all of their own and McCoy and Spock intruded on something private and theirs by watching. McCoy grumbled, then started toward them. Spock didn’t notice until rain prickled over his shoulders. He took a long step to return beneath the umbrella. The distance closed between them with an impending, loud drumming in Spock’s ears that couldn’t drown out the shout of thunder pounding in his side. His pulse beat in his ears as his body drew attention to the sight before him despite how it tipped his stomach, spun his thoughts. It occurred to him then that he’d been happier than usual today because it was the first dinner with McCoy and Jim since Jim met him outside work with teas, an umbrella, and his smiles. He’d been looking forward to seeing him. He’d been looking forward to asking what kind of dish he might deem appropriate to bring to the potluck. He’d been looking forward to teasing Jim about his infamy among Spock’s colleagues, him being a local celebrity by virtue of his unparalleled ability to command the Enterprise, his own merits as James T. Kirk and not the baby born in the wake of the Kelvin’s demise. 

But here Jim was kissing Meghan like he cherished her, like he existed in a slip of time with her, pulled into a gravity as acute and strong as a black hole’s allure, one with an event horizon that repelled Spock with an unfathomable reasoning that defied a logic Spock did not know nor understand. 

McCoy didn’t stop walking until they approached an uncomfortable distance between them. The colliding umbrella snapped the young couple out of their little bubble. To his credit, Jim’s hand flinched away from her cheek at the sight of them. His eyes darted away from Spock’s gaze and wavered on McCoy. 

Jim tipped his chin to them. “What’s up?” 

“It’s raining. Don’t know if you noticed,” said McCoy. “Oh, wait. You meant how we are. I’m fine. Spock’s fine. How are you, Jim?” 

Meghan kissed him, her hands slipping over his back and arms to link around the nape of his neck with twined fingers. Their noses brushed as she pecked his lips, cutting him off as he replied to McCoy. “Slow day,” a laugh of his own cut Jim off. Meghan curled her fingers into his hair and whispered against his lips. Jim squeezed his eyes closed and shook his head, though he kissed her back for a few seconds. Spock’s stomach twisted with sick, nauseated pull, and he purged the bitter taste of emotions that had risen up in his throat. He watched her smile against his lips, breathing in his air and space. 

“I didn’t ask how fast the Earth spun on its axis today, Jim. I asked how you are.” 

Meghan twisted in Jim’s arms to look at them and fixed a look at McCoy with hooded eyes. “Do you have a problem?” 

“What gave it away? Was it the tone or the insistence?” 

She rolled her eyes and proceeded to kiss Jim again, stealing his lips with what looked like a flash of tongue. 

“Jim?” prompted McCoy. “ _Jim._ ” 

“I’m fine, Bones, okay? Leave it.” 

“No, I’m not going to leave it. We talked about this. Yesterday, in fact. Thought we made a breakthrough. But I guess you’re just a liar, but not to me. You’re a liar to yourself.” 

Jim shook his head, grinning despite the line forming between his eyebrows. Meghan kissed him all throughout and Spock could not stop watching. 

“You want to get out of here?” said Meghan. 

“Jim’s on his way to the mess,” said McCoy. “You’re not welcome to join us.” 

Meghan crooked her jaw and spun around so fast Jim tipped his head back to avoid getting smacked in the chin by her beehive. “You’re acting like some nosey, overprotective brother. Why don’t you mind your own business and leave us out of it?” 

“Why don’t _you_ —” 

“I’m spending Thanksgiving with my brother!” 

The umbrellas slipped over together in an ear splitting whisper of wire over nylon teffa. Meghan leaned back to regard Jim. McCoy’s surprise dripped through his single utterance of, “Huh.” But the drumming was loud, persistent as the rain, in Spock’s ears; his attention no longer divided by Meghan but trained entirely on Jim. The cold winds drifted past them and wrestled beneath the umbrella’s canopy, only McCoy’s grip keeping their shelter secure. Spock felt the cold in his stomach, his bones, thoughts chilled to silence as he tried to capture Jim’s gaze. 

He was lying. _Why?_ Spock’s chin tipped, gaze locked on Jim. 

“You have a brother?” murmured Meghan, and pecked his lips. “Is he cute?” 

Jim’s smile came delayed, yet the charming quirk remained through her brief kiss. “Not as cute as me.” 

“Oh?” 

“So you’re going back to Iowa?” said McCoy. 

Jim’s eyes flashed, and he flicked a look at McCoy, but for a split second, he looked Spock’s way. His gaze shuddered, and he smiled as Meghan nuzzled him. Spock wanted to shove him away from her arms, force Jim to acknowledge him and clarify. They had plans — they had plans for a holiday — a holiday for family, for friends, for gratitude and togetherness. He didn’t mind if Jim chose instead to see family — it was afterall a familial event, as far as Spock knew — yet his gut twisted at the sight of Jim huddled beneath the umbrella with Meghan and kissing her as he spoke these lies and truths. 

“Jim? Iowa? Or is he coming to our dorm? Does he know you live in a dorm?” 

McCoy knew Jim to a greater depth than Spock did, as they had been friends for years and were roommates, yet Spock had never felt so acutely aware of it until this moment. It shouldn’t make him feel hollow, or suddenly privy to a conversation he ought to not eavesdrop on, even though he were as equal a member to this moment as anyone else. But Jim had confided in Spock, as he’d done to Jim, about personal matters, about their parents — and yet now he was lying about Thanksgiving and McCoy knew of his brother, a brother whose existent Spock learned of at the same time as Meghan. 

The pressing need to step away from the umbrella and flee overwhelmed him. 

“Jim? Earth to Jim?” 

“He’s not coming to our dorm,” said Jim, testily. 

“All right, so are you going to Iowa?” 

“No.” 

“So if you’re not going to Iowa and he’s not coming here, then…?” 

Meghan chuckled, rising on her tiptoes to whisper in Jim’s ear. He smiled, one of those small, gentle ones. Spock’s stomach twisted again. Jim slipped an arm around her shoulder and drew her near, the umbrellas whispering as they began to turn away without so much as a goodbye. 

Spock fought to control himself — his confusion, his bitterness, his _irritation_ over being ignored. When he spoke, his voice vaulted over the rain and hooked over Jim’s ear, triggering him to halt. “ _Jim_ ,” he said — firmly, with authority, demanding him to not avert his gaze or turn his back or evade from answering a question. The rain pattered over the umbrellas, a gentle drumming mirrored in his heart. 

Jim kissed Meghan’s cheek before they continued walking, never turning back. 

* 

The evening progressed as otherwise planned — he graded until reaching the bottom of the stack, returned to his dorm long after the moon hung high in the sky. When he arrived, Rob was packing a duffel bag with clothes and other necessities. 

Rob noticed Spock’s arrival and shrugged. He was leaving for Thanksgiving after his last exam on Friday. Spock wished him well and went about the rest of his evening. 

* 

In the morning a message awaited him on his PADD from Jim: an article about puppies playing chess on a giant board, the pieces little treats they ate in order to progress across the board. 

A little twinge in Spock’s side precipitated his slightly too hasty shoving of the power off button. 

* 

The next day, Jim sent a simple, _Hey_ , which Spock read early in the morning, just after brushing his teeth, and hadn’t been awake enough to remember for long after he’d read it. 

* 

Wednesday came by and caught Spock off guard. Darlene and Roger loitered around the coat rack and Spock greeted them a stiff farewell in contrast to their breezy countenance. They asked if he’d like to join for dinner, and — naturally — he said no. He needed to prepare his lesson plans. He left and on autopilot went toward the cafeteria — it was his routine after all, and as his stomach churned at each passing step, he wondered, when _had_ this become his routine? When had Jim and McCoy become such frequent fixtures in his life that he went to them without thinking? The pit in his belly grew colder. He remembered the other day. He remembered Jim kissing Meghan and everything McCoy knew that Spock didn’t, how Meghan was privy to all Spock knew and did not know. 

He went briskly to his dorm, electing for a replicated dinner. 

* 

_I’m sorry for canceling on Thanksgiving and how I did it. Can we talk?_

Spock saw the message during his morning routine but didn’t reply for the entire day until his shift ended in the early afternoon. It consumed his thoughts, regardless. It seemed too good to be true, an apology over something that was not important and yet somehow managed to hurt in a way Spock knew was entirely illogical, and yet it still hurt. The hour on the message read in the midst of when they usually had dinner. 

He replied, _We can congregate at Spinner’s Gold this evening_ , because it was right to not hold a grudge over something inconsequential, because it was in public and somehow that felt safer. He didn’t know why, but he couldn’t handle speaking to Jim in private, in their dorms, or the quiet of the library, or the solitude of a walk beneath the same umbrella. 

The reply didn’t take long to arrive. _Sounds great!_

* 

Spock arrived first and a warmth pooled in his belly from the realization. With little adieu he went to the line because that was what one did in a coffee shop: had coffee, or tea, relaxed in a seat, partook the surroundings. That was what Jim and he were about to do: relax in a coffee shop and discuss whatever it was that Jim hoped to discuss with Spock on this day in this location. Spock ordered a green matcha tea and moments later a barista presented to him a paper cup filled with piping hot liquid, the steam billowing the only indication to the true heat. The cup was lukewarm to the touch due to the protection of more than one cardboard sleeve slipped around the tea. Spock sat close to the window, so Jim might see him as he walked past on the sidewalk and perhaps as he entered. Spock was not quite tucked away into a corner so as to be wholly private, yet not so visible as to aid eavesdroppers in listening into what was most certainly bound to be a private conversation. 

Spock breathed in the steam of his tea and waited, mind drifting into quiet, thoughtless wanderings as he slipped into a meditative state, one he was jostled out of whenever the bell rang as a patron entered the coffee shop. 

Each time, his carefully practice calm dissipated as a maelstrom of thoughts seized him: of Jim kissing Meghan, then Jim smiling against her lips, of Jim smiling across a chessboard or sleeping in the library or telling Spock that everything would be okay and his mother was always with him, to listen to her voice, surround himself with her transmissions, of his companionship and presence and energy. His gut felt light — that same feeling he got when boarding his shuttle off of Vulcan, the transport quivering as it ruptured the planet’s atmosphere and embarked on his journey away from his father’s disapproval and toward his mother’s homeworld. He had the distinct impression that something was about to change today — something about to be irrevocably altered, and he didn’t know if he was adequately prepared, if it were possible to be prepared. He ran a finger along the lip of his tea, testing the steam, its heat, its potential to burn, then rescinded his hand away from what was most certainly water too hot to taste just yet. 

The bell chimed, jolting Spock from his thoughts. Then his mind blanked as he forced down shields. Jim had arrived, hair windswept and hood fallen back over the nape of his neck, blond hair darkened from the damp cold, stray raindrops here and there in the omen of a storm. Jim peered around the coffee shop, gaze visibly scanning, and it only took one sweep to find Spock, facing the door and looking at him. Jim smiled, a little tightly for one of Jim’s smiles, and shook his wrist in a little wave that Spock returned with a slight tip of his chin. Jim took his place in line and looked down at the shoes of the person in front of him, and Spock tried to focus his attention down at his tea. 

Only a breath of time slipped by before Jim had woven through the tables, however, and found Spock. 

“Would you like a bagel? Or a gingerbread cookie? Coffee cake?” he said everything in one breath, his chest tight and constrained in an obvious effort not to pant for air. His cheeks from this close were visibly pinked. Spock suddenly wondered if Jim had run here. 

Spock shook his head. “I do not require sustenance,” he said, and a part of him internally quirked his head at the neutral wording, his inflection, an inflection more at home among a stranger than a friend he met up with at a coffee shop. 

Jim nodded, coming short as he said, “Okay.” 

He spun around and took one step away before he spun around back. “If you want another tea, let me know, I’ll order you one. My treat.” He smiled again, a little friendly, though pinched — like his breath wasn’t the only thing he withheld. Spock did not investigate that detail, not entirely certain how to examine it. 

“I thank you,” he said, once again perturbed by his own voice, his own words, speaking without thought yet every syllable measured. 

Jim nodded, letting out a breath, then spun around and didn’t come back to face him. He took his place at the end of the line. He secured his former place in line, as no one new had arrived at the coffee shop. In fact, he was more ahead in line as someone had been newly tended to at the register. 

Spock tried not to glance at him, his skin buzzing, his mind blank yet loud all at once. It reminded him of Nyota, of his first lessons that she attended and observed, knowing she was there and yet not being able to acknowledge her. He glanced at Jim and found him with hands tucked into his jeans, staring beyond the shoulder of the woman in front of him, not noticing Spock and not seeming to notice anything at all. 

He took his order, but didn’t loiter around the bar as his drink was prepared. He came back to the table with only a receipt, and sat down first without removing his coat. Spock raised an eyebrow at it. 

“What? Oh.” Jim chuckled bashfully, unbuttoning. 

Then they slipped into a silence, one filled by the silent maelstrom in Spock’s mind and the carefully controlled desperate breaths Jim still hadn’t managed to overcome. 

Jim ran his hands over his legs, glancing over his shoulder. Looking away at something across the shop, he said, “Thanks for coming. For, uh, letting me…” 

Spock closed his eyes and bowed his head lightly. 

Jim chuckled again. “I forgot how nice this place is… cozy.” Then his hands stilled. and he shifted around to look clearly at Spock. “You look good,” he said. “Black… it suits you.” 

Spock wore his uniform. The statement was defunct in the reality of the mundane irrelevance of the uniform and how it neither enhanced nor detracted from one’s appearance. It was neutral, a uniform, colorless without any hint of style or quirk. He remembered wearing the equivalent in school, in those reclusive dome tests. 

Yet somehow when Jim said it, a little part of Spock yearned for his good opinion. An irrational part of him believed a sincerity lied in his ill worded compliment as the delivery had been too earnest for this to be a lie — or a manipulation, he realized. Suddenly he was reminded of when he’d approach Nyota and compliment her prowess in translations and agonize over the slightest hint of emotion behind the stony wall she’d put up ever since whatever he’d done to hurt her. 

He straightened. He wished it’d been imperceptible, but then Jim’s head snapped up. They locked eyes. 

He fought through the blankness of his thoughts for a response, finding nothing. 

Jim took a breath, opened his mouth to speak — 

“Green matcha tea for Jim!” 

Jim’s chair shrieked as he lurched back. “Excuse me — ” He left before Spock could reply, but all Spock could think of was, _We ordered the same tea._

Jim returned not long after. Spock watched in disbelief as Jim wove back the way he came. He struggled through the tables with his arms raised up, stomach tucked as he avoided brushing against chairs. He could have easily avoided that by heading toward the door, walking alongside the line with little inconvenience. 

Jim slipped back into his seat, a wisp of air breezing over Spock that he breathed in sharply — the sound of his inhale audible, and Jim glanced up, noticing. Spock was momentarily distracted by Jim’s familiar scent, taken aback by the wave of comfort that placated the nerves Spock hadn’t realized he’d been feeling until Jim had alleviated it by his mere existence. 

But then he remembered Meghan, smiling against Jim’s smile, sharing the same umbrella. Jim not once directed a word to Spock despite shattering him with a single admission. 

Then Jim was hissing. He’d drunk the tea. He lurched the cup away, some hot water splashing over his wrist. 

“Caution,” said Spock, just as quickly. 

“It’s hot, I know. God, do I know.” 

“Indeed.” 

Then Jim was laughing — an honest laugh, a nervous laugh. Spock could not differentiate yet it felt like both at once. The bubble dividing them against the berth of their table popped. A lightness filled Spock up, and he calmly watched Jim laughing, his lips a crescent moon as mirth overwhelmed him. 

“Perhaps you ought to set the tea down,” said Spock, and Jim did just that, “before you hurt yourself.” 

“Ever logical as always, What would I do without you?” They fell back into silence, then Jim said, seriously, “Spock, I lied to you. I’m not going to Thanksgiving with my brother.” 

His ers buzzed. “Why did you lie?” 

“I’m so sorry. I messed things up between us and I — are we still friends?’ 

Spock hooked up an eyebrow, not sure how to parse that. “You believe our friendship to have dissolved?” 

“Like acid ran through it.” 

“Illogical,” he said, as much for himself as for Jim because he was buzzing. Something within stirred alive because Jim thought something had broken between them, something he hadn’t wanted broken. He wondered if Meghan knew about this, about Jim’s truth, if McCoy even knew, McCoy who knew about Jim’s brother before Spock did and knew a whole lot more about Jim than Spock did. “Our bond is not so fragile for one misunderstanding to severe it.” 

Jim looked at him pensively. “I missed you. It’s been just two days, but I missed you so bad. I didn’t know what to do. I conjugated verbs in Vulcan for hours.” 

Spock leaned forward. “Fascinating.” 

“It is fascinating. It is — I — god, I missed you. I don’t remember missing anyone like you. It felt like something was ripped away from me, something I didn’t know that could be ripped away from me. Can I still go to Thanksgiving with you? I want to. I’m so sorry.” 

Spock tested the temperature of his tea, then sipped it anyway. “Have you informed Leonard about your plans?” he asked, calmly though he recognized bitterness within him the second he felt it. He did not ask about Meghan, and yet he wanted to. Oh, how he wanted to — but there was a correct answer to that question, and only one correct answer. 

“No!” Jim then reached across the table and lightly touched his wrist. Spock nearly spilled his tea as a wave of pressing need, of urgency and desire and haunting agony poured over him where their skin touched. “No, I’m telling you first. You’re the only one who knows.” 

Spock didn’t remove his wrist from beneath Jim and neither did Jim move away his hand. He listened to Jim’s emotions even as his words fell to silence. The coffee shop disappeared into a haze of white noise. Jim’s need and desire and desperation were storming through his mind. He drank it in like a sailor parched at sea. He shifted his hand, turning his wrist, and Jim’s fingers ghosted across his palm, their fingertips close to touching, touching yet untouched. Spock couldn’t focus on anything else but their hands and this moment and the emotion pouring unfettered into him. He watched as the sinews of his wrist flexed, as Jim’s fingers twitched in a mockery of caress. 

“I was wondering,” whispered Jim, voice thick despite the quiet, a trickle of fear coursing through from Jim to Spock, “why invite me and not Uhura as your plus one?” 

“Why would I invite Nyota?” he said, and Jim’s fingers shifted slightly, but he felt every flicker disbelief and bewilderment. 

“Isn’t she — well, I mean. She’s your girlfriend. Maybe on Vulcan, it’s not… you take your girlfriend as your plus one. Unless she’s got plans, shoot —” Jim ripped his hand away. 

“We broke up.” Broke up, not terminated, broke up. 

Jim fell back, just a little bit, in his seat. “You did?” 

“Months ago.” 

His eyebrows flew up. “Months ago?” He stole his tea and drank heartily. With it still on his lips, he said, “So… this whole time…. You were never…” 

“We had broken up,” he said — and his heart began to thunder, his bones feather light and the coffee shop loud with the bell and the espresso machine and the register slapping open and shut. Yet it was only wistful silence compared to the cacophony of something quiet and grand and paramount building between them. Spock watched every minute change in Jim’s wonderful, beautiful face as he processed the somehow pertinent fact that Nyota was not Spock’s girlfriend. His gaze shuddered, breath shortened, shoulder slackened. A puff of air escaped his lungs like a disbelieving laugh. 

Jim held Spock’s hand, twining their fingers together, tight, certain — melding them together in a singular moment, a gravity not even light could escape. “You’re a touch telepath,” he whispered. 

Spock nodded — 

— and then he felt it. 

_Love._

* 

They left not long after. They were wiped out by that revelation of Jim’s confession and how Spock never released his hand, not the entire time he felt Jim’s emotions as they drifted into pointless conversation reminiscent of life before Monday. 

They parted in the opposite direction as Jim left for his dorm and Spock left for the library to grade papers. Jim could have joined, he always did, but that wouldn’t be right. Spinner’s Gold had changed between them, in their hearts and in this life. 

He glanced over his shoulder. Jim was walking away, his red jacket over his uniform the same as anyone else in the sea of red drifting through the streets, but Spock could pick him out easily. Somehow Jim was easy to find, even among this crowd. He turned back around and continued walking, a lightness in his step that he refused to show because that would be emotive, illogical, untoward. 

He felt a prickle at the back of his neck. He stopped and turned without thinking. 

And that red coat he’d been tracking had turned around too. 

Their gaze held, despite people slipping between them, at that far a distance. 

Jim waved and grinned, ducking his head as he turned around. 

Spock watched him a second longer. 

He made it a good distance away from the coffee shop and back to the Starfleet Academy when a hand clapped over his shoulder. He didn’t turn around, but then Jim was in front him and smiling and so close that Spock saw flecks of grey in his irises. 

“Sorry, I couldn’t say goodbye without, um — ” Jim’s hand twitched over Spock’s shoulder, his eyes flickered down — to Spock’s lips. 

Spock didn’t shift, except to look down at Jim’s smile. 

Then the distance closed. Jim kissed him. 

His mind was buzzing, stomach flipping. He felt lightheaded and stunned and not quite conscious of what was happening. He forced down a shield to cut off the joy emanating from Jim, because while it exhilarated Spock, it was also too much. He held Jim’s cheek to keep him dear and close. He breathed deeply — for air, for his scent, for stability of his own breath to guide him into a quieter mind that didn’t come to him despite his effort. He drowned in Jim and this kiss and this moment, feeling nothing, absolutely nothing, and yet everything and he didn’t know how to rationalize that or even if he ought to. 


	6. Chapter 6

Spock barely stepped into the dorm room before he stalked Jim further into the room, kicking the door shut with his boot and skirting his fingertips along Jim’s neck, over the scruffy curves of his jaw to his ears, so soft a fission twitched through Jim.

They were kissing like two people who’d spent an evening thinking about what had just happened earlier that day with the knowledge that McCoy had the night shift at the medical center and Spock always stayed over. Spock went to deepen the kiss at the same time Jim did. They kissed with open mouths, wet and hungry and desperate. Every fervent emotion from Jim crackled against Spock’s skin, his face warm and rough from Jim’s scruff. They bumped into furniture in a way that must have hurt, yet Jim never stopped. He clutched at Spock’s arms as Spock blindly guided them to the bed. The back of Jim’s knees collided with the frame and they collapsed over it, tumbling down with Jim falling hard on his back, the breath hot and sudden out of his lungs, and Spock smothered the shock away with his lips. Jim’s fingers dove into his hair, scratching in a way that sent Spock’s eyes lulling and a moan building deep in his throat as goosebumps rose in a wave of pleasure that Spock could not deny and yet he did not wholly fathom. 

Then his deeply ingrained logical upbringing clawed its way to the surface. He tore away from the kiss. Jim arched up to recapture his lips, but Spock burrowed into the crook of his neck, kissing along his throat and running a hand along his side as he went to pull aside his shirt and kiss and nip along his collarbones. Spock whispered into his skin, quiet and rough and impossible to miss in the pin drop silent room, “Meghan?” 

Jim fidgeted. “I’m not proud, but I broke up with her through a message, a written one. Not long after we… did this the first time.” 

“Good.” 

Jim barked out a laugh, chest leaping against Spock. 

He snatched up Spock’s hair, nails scraping against his ears in a way that cut out all thought from his mind, then he pulled Spock back to his lips. 

Jim craved him, obvious through his kiss and emotions pouring into Spock. A spark of amusement buzzed through him after Spock asked about Meghan. It wasn’t enough — Spock needed more — he wanted to meld with Jim. He wanted to not only feel an impression of Jim but _know_ him, know how his mind worked, how deeply logic ran or did not run within him, how different and similar he was to Spock and what that spark, that novelty, that — that thing that was _just Jim_ , and like nothing else, what it was like. He always wanted to meld during sex, and he craved to feel Jim, to know him, right now, even just as they made out and made a mess of his bed sheets. Without thinking, he settled a hand over Jim’s psi-points. He tried to break away from this kisses, mind catching up with his body to ask Jim if he wanted this too — 

Only Jim said, “You better hold me after the emotional transference, I swear to God, Spock.” 

“Are you certain?” he said, heart leaping, wondering how Jim knew of emotional transference. 

“Yes, f — do it.” 

Heart beat racing, Spock whispered over his lips, “ _My mind to your mind, my thoughts to your thoughts,_ ” stunned both at his ability to say it correctly the first time and that he was saying it at all. 

* 

Iowa in winter burned from a cold Spock couldn’t fathom, yet the warmth of love that wrapped around him stopped him from succumbing to the bitter winds. He basked in the snow days Jim spent tucked away at home repairing his vintage motorcycle. He was away from Frank for the first time in his life and savored every taste of freedom to be alone with his thoughts and a motorcycle that looked so much like the one Jim saw in old photographs of his father. _Did you ride it?_ Spock had thought in askance. _Yeah, and then there was so much ice on the highway that I had to walk the bike home. Worth it._

They maneuvered around the famine and death and though Spock would have slipped out of the meld, Jim didn’t want to. He wanted Spock to see and know because he was never going to get another chance to know this. Jim didn’t need to explain why, Spock understood. 

Jim saw when Spock met his sister, when she walked into the doors into their family home on Vulcan. He saw her tentative smile and Spock holding up the salute. He saw just enough not to notice the red sky outside the windows. Jim missed his mother’s anticipation and happiness — missed as Spock raised a tentative shield, one Spock himself missed, at first. But it was hard not to realize what he was doing when everything Jim glimpsed of him afterward avoided his mother, nature not of this Earth, anything that didn’t hurt, that wouldn’t ruin this moment between them. 

But then they fell back into Jim’s mind, into memories where he drove past the speed limit and the air whipped past his cheeks in a space where nothing mattered but feeling alive, feeling invincible even though his mother had abandoned him, he might never see his brother again, and waiting for him at home was only fury and bitterness and someone who never cared for Jim a day in him life. There was nothing but the wind and the police siren and the blood rushing in Jim’s veins. Spock wondered what it might have been like had he known Jim on Vulcan, where all Spock knew were facts and that he was different and that his father didn’t love his mother and his only shield against bullies was logic and reason. Jim’s kiss melted away the ache, and the meld slipped away into pure emotion. 

* 

Every transmission, next kiss, casual touch, needy grasp, hour apart — everything felt like the first time, and they were a first time, and Spock savored every moment because moments never lasted, and all he would have were memories, memories he never wanted to forget. Yet every time they lied curled with tangled legs in Jim’s bed, a bed barely large enough to accommodate one of them — Jim would do the talking. he’d talk about his brother Sam, how they called each other over the holidays and Jim still didn’t know how he felt about Sam’s mustache, not that he would ever say because there had been too much pain in their childhood and he wanted to treasure every fragile, kind moment between them. In the silence that followed, the silence Spock was mean to fill — with stories about his siblings, his parents, or anything at all — Spock ignored it instead to kiss Jim deeply, rolling over on top of him and pinning Jim beneath him onto the tiny bed, holding Jim’s cheek dearly and hoping he kissed him well enough for him not to notice that Spock hadn’t shared anything, that Jim actually knew very little of the things about him that mattered. 

* 

The days slipped by in a mirage of melds and holding each other, quiet walks in the rain before they fell into bed and Jim talked, Spock listened because Spock didn’t know what to say. He had nothing to share, nothing new because work never changed. Rob had left for Thanksgiving, and the time to mention his personal family stories had passed, were he to mention them at all. Were Spock to say he hadn’t noticed the delightful light in Jim’s eye since their truce and first kiss had begun to dim, that wouldn’t be a truth — he’d noticed, he’d noticed it plain in the sadness marring Jim’s smiles, the hesitancy before he settled his hand over Spock as they lied in bed. But it wasn’t like Spock could change that. It wasn’t that easy. He couldn’t say the words, he could barely think them. It was how it was, how he was, how he navigated things. 

* 

Thanksgiving potluck had lots of stuff on the table, so many foods that Spock didn’t recognize, but there were a few vegetarian options that seemed appetizing — mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, yams, something made of tofu in the semblance of turkey that Spock wasn’t sure if he wanted to eat, however illogical that response was. He nursed a champagne flute of sparkling apple cider and silently joined in conversation with a lab tech that had come as someone’s date. He’d been working on a propulsion tank to increase optimization of warp drives, a fascinating advancement that Spock was keen to listen to aptly, as warp drives would eventually guide his existence. 

But he couldn’t really focus too easily because the potluck had begun hours ago. He’d drunk four flutes of sparkling cider. This conversation about propulsion tanks had gone on for quite long of a time. Everyone had eaten more or less, although they were digesting before beginning the pie 

Jim hadn’t come. 

It could be anything — an accident, an ill-timed nap, an elevator stopping — but he knew, he knew deep in his bones with a logic born from the purest of intuition — that this was his fault. He’d shoved Jim away by never pulling him in. Jim wasn’t ever going to come, and it was all Spock’s doing, his lack of doing. 

* 

The rain wasn’t pouring, but the winds swept up the water in the air and hit Spock’s clothes, the lonely journey back to his dorm from the Thanksgiving potluck cold and unforgiving. He didn’t feel irritation or annoyance or anything about the weather or the potluck. He trained on a mantra, focused in his breath. Regained control on his sense of self. 

But then he got to his building and there Jim was, sitting on the steps by the intercom. 

Jim looked up, sensing something amiss. It could have been a bird perhaps, or a tree quivering in the wind, but it was Spock. 

Spock would eventually have to enter the building, so he didn’t waste any time and went to him. Jim rose up, but slowly, like his muscles were weighed down. 

Their umbrellas brushed against each other as they came close, staying under their own shelters, the space between cold. 

Jim looked down at the ground, brow furrowed, thinking. Then he looked at him and they just watched each other, not saying anything. It was just the rain and the silence and everything left unsaid. 

Tentatively, Spock raised two fingers — a kiss. Jim observed them quietly for a moment, then slowly raised his hands, touching their fingers tips — a wave of longing trickled through. 

“I just — I.” Jim’s knuckles whitened as he clung to the umbrella, but the ones against Spock’s fingertips were gentle, never parting. “Everything feels one sided. I’m opening up to you and… I know you went through things. I know you lost… a lot. You don’t have to talk about it, but — I haven’t even told Bones the things I told you and he used to be the person I told everything to. I just… it feels like my chest is too tight. It hurts, when I think of you it hurts.” 

Spock had to close his eyes because he couldn’t think it. He could barely say it, but he _felt_ it, and deep down he knew he needed this more than anything. “If we could meld?” 

The fingers against his twitched. “You don’t have to do anything that makes you feel worse, but I just need to know your headspace before you shut me out. This isn’t going to work with you shutting me out because I’ll just go crazy with doubt and insecurity.” 

“I want to try,” whispered Spock. “I don’t want to lie anymore.” 

An umbrella clattered to the ground, and Jim wrapped Spock in his arms, jacket bunched in his grip as he hugged him tightly. He buried his face in Spock’s neck, warm puffs of air that Spock realized was a soft laugh. Spock closed his eyes and rested his cheek over Jim’s head, breathing him in and listened to the falling rain and felt at peace. 

**Author's Note:**

> Some links!
> 
> [Masterpost on tumblr @thylabang](https://thylabang.tumblr.com/post/621857683030589440/title-the-future-is-brighter-than-any-flashback).  
> [My writing playlist for this fic! :)](https://scatteredmoonlightt.tumblr.com/post/621883124478083074/the-future-is-brighter-than-any-flashback)


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